THE MESSAGE
"I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT THE HEAD OF
HER WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS" (See page 233)
A. J. DAWSON
Jluthor of " Hidden Manna," " African Nights Entertain-
ments," " Daniel Whyte," " God's Foundling,"
"Ronald Kestrel," etc.
Illustrated from Color Sketches
(By H. M. BROCK
DANA ESTES & COMPANY, BOSTON
E. GRANT RICHARDS, LONDON
Copyright, April 77, 7907
BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY
All rights reserved
Entered at Stationers' 1 Hall
COLONIAL PRESS
ELKCTROTYPKD AND PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS & Co.
BOSTON, U.S.A.
SRLF
URL
CONTENTS
PART I. THE DESCENT
OHAPT PAGE
I. IN THE MAKING 3
II. Ax THE WATER'S EDGE .... 12
III. AN INTERLUDE 17
IV. THE LAUNCHING 29
V. A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT ... 41
VI. A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS ... 53
VII. A GIRL AND HER FAITH 66
VIII. A STIRRING WEEK 78
IX. A STEP DOWN 90
X. FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI ... 101
XL MORNING CALLERS Ill
XII. SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON . . . 121
XIII. THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK . . 131
XIV. THE NEWS 143
XV. SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON . . . 153
XVI. A PERSONAL REVELATION .... 163
XVII. ONE STEP FORWARD 168
XVIII. THE DEAR LOAF 177
XIX. THE TRAGIC WEEK 188
XX. BLACK SATURDAY 198
XXI. ENGLAND ASLEEP . .... 208
PART II. THE AWAKENING
I. THE FIRST DAYS 221
II. ANCIENT LIGHTS 228
CONTENTS
CHAPTEB PAGE
III. THE RETURN TO LONDON .... 237
IV. THE CONFERENCE 243
V. MY OWN PART 257
VI. PREPARATIONS 262
VII. THE SWORD OF THE LORD .... 271
VIII. THE PREACHERS 291
IX. THE CITIZENS 301
X. SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE . . 312
XI. THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE .... 317
XII. BLOOD Is THICKER THAN WATER . . 330
XIII. ONE SUMMER MORNING .... 338
XIV. "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY" . . 343
XV. "SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD' . 352
XVI. HANDS ACROSS THE SEA .... 360
XVII. THE PENALTY 366
XVIII. THE PEACE 374
XIX. THE GREAT ALLIANCE .... 383
XX. PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES . . 389
VI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
" I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT THE
HEAD OF HER WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS " Frontispiece
THE ROARING CITY ....... 40
" RIVERS USHERED IN Miss CONSTANCE GREY " . . 114
" I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVP:LESS
HAND" . 212
Non his juventus orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine
Punico. HOKACB.
THE MESSAGE
IN THE MAKING
" Such as I am, sir no great subject for a boaster, I admit-
you see in me a product of my time, sir, and of very worthy
parents, I assure you." EZEK.IEL JOT.
AS a very small lad, at home in Tarn Regis, I had
but one close chum, George Stairs, and he went
off with his father to Canada, while I was away for
my first term at Elstree school. Then came Rugby,
where I had several friends, but the chief of them was
Leslie Wheeler. Just why we should have been close
friends I cannot say, but I fancy it was mainly
because Leslie was such a handsome fellow, and always
seemed to cut a good figure in everything he did;
while I, on the other hand, excelled in nothing, and
was not brilliant even in the expression of my discon-
tent, which was tolerably comprehensive. Withal, in
other matters beside discontent, I was a good deal of
an extremist, and by no means lacking in enthusiasm.
My father, too, was an enthusiast in his quiet way.
His was the enthusiasm of the student, and his work
as historian and archaeologist absorbed, I must sup-
3
THE MESSAGE
pose, a great deal more of his interest and energy
than was ever given to his cure of souls. He was
rector of Tarn Regis, in Dorset, before I was born,
and at the time of his death, to be present at which
I was called away in the middle of the last term of my
third year at Cambridge. I was to have spent four
years at the University ; but, as the event proved, I
never returned there after my hurried departure,
three days prior to my father's death.
The personal tie between my father and those
among whom he lived and worked was not a very close
or intimate bond. His contribution to the Cambridge
History was greatly appreciated by scholars, and his
archaeological research won him the respect and es-
teem of his peers in that branch of study. But I can-
not pretend that his loss was keenly felt by his parish-
ioners, with most of whom his relations had been
strictly professional rather than personal. A good
man and true, without a trace of anything sordid or
self-seeking in his nature, my father was yet singu-
larly indifferent to everything connected with the
daily lives and welfare of his fellow creatures.
In this he was typical of a considerable section of
the country clergy of the time. I knew colleagues of
his who were more pronounced examples of the type.
One in particular I call to mind (whose living was in
the gift of a Cambridge college, like my father's),
who, though a good fellow and a clean-lived gentle-
man, was no more a Christian than he was a Buddhist
less, upon the whole. Among scholarly folk he
made not the slightest pretence of regarding the
fundamental tenets of the Christian faith in the light
4
IN THE MAKING
of anything more serious than interesting historical
myths, notable sections in the mosaic of folk-lore,
which it was his pride and delight to study and un-
derstand.
Such men as A R and my father (and there
were many like them, and more who shared their
aloofness while lacking half their virtues) lived hard-
working, studious lives, in which the common kinds of
self-indulgence played but a very small part. Hon-
ourable, kindly at heart, gentle, rarely consciously
selfish, these worthy men never gave a thought to the
current affairs of their country, to their own part as
citizens, or to the daily lives of their fellow country-
men. Indeed, they exhibited a kind of gentle intoler-
ance and contempt in all topical concerns ; and though
they preached religion and drew stipends as expound-
ers of Christianity, they no more thought of " pry-
ing " or " interfering," as they would have said, into
the actual lives and hearts and minds of those about
them, than of thrusting their hands into their parish-
ioners' pockets.
Stated in this bald way the thing may sound incred-
ible, but those whose recollections carry them back to
the opening years of the century will bear me out in
saying that this was far from being either the most
distressing or the most remarkable among the out-
workings of what was then extolled as a broad spirit
of tolerance. Our " tolerance," our vaunted " cosmo-
politanism," were far more dangerous factors of our
national life, had we but known it, than either the
insularity of our sturdy forbears or the strength of
our enemies had ever been.
5
THE MESSAGE
Even my dear mother did not, I think, feel the
shock of her bereavement so much as might have been
supposed. One may say, without disrespect, that the
loss of my father gave point and justification to my
mother's attitude toward life. Kind, gentle soul that
she was, my mother was afflicted with what might be
called the worrying temperament ; a disposition char-
acteristic of that troublous time. My memory seems
to fasten upon the matter of domestic labour as repre-
senting the crux and centre of my dear mother's
grievances and topics of lament prior to my father's
death. The subject may seem to border upon the
ridiculous, as an influence upon one's general point of
view ; but at that time it was really more tragic than
farcical, and I know that what was called " the serv-
ant question " as such it was gravely treated in
books and papers, and even by leader-writers and
lecturers formed the basis of a great deal of my
mother's conversation, just as I am sure that it col-
oured her outlook upon life, and strengthened her
tendency to worry over everything, from the wear-
and-tear of house-linen to the morality of the people.
All this was incomprehensible and absurd to my
father, though, had he but thought of it, it was really
more human than his own attitude ; for certainly my
mother was interested and concerned in the daily lives
of her fellow creatures, though not in a cheering or
illuminating manner perhaps.
But, as I say, the deprecatory, worrying attitude
had become second nature with my mother long years
before her widowhood, and had lined and seamed her
poor forehead and silvered her hair before my Rugby
6
IN THE MAKING
days were over. Bereavement merely gave point to
a mood already well established.
That I should not return to Cambridge was decided
as a matter of course within the week of my father's
funeral, when we learned that the little he had left
behind him would not even pay for the dilapidations
of the rectory. There was practically nothing, when
my father's affairs were put in order, beyond my
mother's little property, a recent legacy, the invest-
ment of which in Canadian railway stocks brought in
about a hundred and fifty a year.
Thus I found myself confronted with a sufficiently
serious situation for a young man whose training so
far had no more fitted him for taking part in any
particular division of the battle of life, where the
prize sought is an income, than for the administration
of the planet Mars. Rugby was better than some of
the great public schools in this respect, for a lad with
definite purposes and ambitions, but its curriculum
had far less bearing upon the working life of the age
than it had upon its games and pastimes and the af-
fairs of nations and peoples long since passed away.
Yet Rugby belonged to a group of schools that were
admittedly the best, and certainly the most outrage-
ously costly, of the educational establishments of the
period.
I think my sister Lucy was more shocked than any
one else by the death of our father. I say shocked,
because I am not certain whether or not the word
grieved would apply accurately. For one thing, Lucy
had never before seen any dead person. Neither
had I, for that matter; but Lucy was more affected
7
THE MESSAGE
by the actual presence in the house of Death, than I
was. Twice a day for years she had kissed our
father's forehead. Now and again she had sat upon
the arm of his chair and stroked his thin hair. These
demonstrations were connected, I believe, with the
quest of favours permission, money, and so forth ;
but doubtless affection played a part in them.
As for Lucy's home life, a little conversation I re-
call on the occasion of her driving me to the station
when I was leaving for what proved my last term at
Cambridge, seems to me to throw some light. I had
but recently learned of Lucy's engagement to marry
Doctor Woodthrop, of Davenham Minster, our near-
est market-town. I had found Woodthrop a decent
fellow enough, but thirty-four as against Lucy's
twenty-one, inclining ominously to corpulence, and as
flatly prosaic and unadventurous a spirit as a small
country town could produce. Now, as Lucy seemed
to me to have hankerings in the direction of social
pleasures and the like, with a penchant for brilliancy
and daring, I was a little puzzled about her engage-
ment, for Woodthrop was one who kept a few conver-
sational pleasantries on hand, as a man keeps old
pipes on a rack, for periodical use at suitable times.
" So you are actually going to be married, Loo ? '"'
I said.
" Oh, well, engaged, Dick," she replied, with a
little blush.
" With a view, I presume. Then I suppose it
follows that you are in love h'm ? "
" Why, Dick, what a cross-examiner you are ! "
The blush increased.
8
IN THE MAKING
" Well, my dear girl, surely it's a natural assump-
tion, is it not? "
" Oh, I suppose so. But "
"Yes?"
" Well, I don't think in real life it's the same thing
that you read about in novels, do you, Dick ? "
" What? Being in love? "
" Yes."
" Well, perhaps not ; but I imagine it ought to be
something pretty pronounced, you know, even in such
a pale reflection of the novels as real life. I gather
that it ought to be; seriously, Loo, I think it ought
to be. I suppose you do love Woodthrop, don't you ? "
My sister looked a little distressed, and I half-
regretted having put so direct a question. I was
sufficiently the product of my day to be terribly
afraid of any kind of interference with my fellow
creatures. Our apotheosis of individual liberty had
made any such action anathema, " bad form," a sin
more resented in the sinner than cowardice or dishon-
esty, or than any kind of wickedness which was
strictly personal and, as you might say, self-con-
tained. Our one object of universal reverence and
respect was the personal equation.
" There, Loo," I said, " I didn't mean to tease
you." Thus, in accordance with my traditions, I
brushed aside and apologized for my natural interest
in her well-being in the same way that my poor father
and his like brushed away all matters of topical im-
port, and the average man of the period brushed
aside all concern with his fellow men, all responsibility
for the common weal.
9
THE MESSAGE
" No," she said, " I know you didn't. And, indeed,
Dick, I suppose I don't love Herbert as well as I
ought; but but, Dick, you don't know what it is
to be a girl. You can go off to Cambridge, and pres-
ently you will go out into the world and live your
own life in your own way. But it's different for me,
Dick. A girl is not supposed to want to live her own
life; she is just part of the home, and the home .
Well, Dick, you know father's life, and mother
poor mother "
" Yes," I said, " that's so."
" Well, Dick, I'm afraid it seems pretty selfish, but
I do want to live my own way, and I do get terribly
tired of of "
" Of the * servant question,' for instance."
" Exactly."
" And you think you can live your own life with
Woodthrop?"
" Why, I think he is very kind and good, Dick,
and he says there's no reason why I shouldn't hunt,
if I can manage with one mount, and we can have
friends of mine to stay, and and so on."
" Yes, I see. You will be mistress of a house."
" And, of course, I like him very much, Dick ; he
really is good."
" Yes."
That was how Lucy felt about her marriage.
There seemed to me to be a good deal lacking; but
then I was rather given to concentrating my attention
upon flaws and gaps. And when I was next at home,
at the time of my father's death, I could not help
feeling that the engagement was something to be
10
IN THE MAKING
thankful for. A hundred and fifty a year would
mean a good deal of pinching for my mother alone,
as things went then; but for mother and Lucy to-
gether it would have been painfully short commons.
Life, even in the country, was an expensive business
at that time despite the current worship of cheapness
and of " free " trade, as our Quixotic fiscal policy
was called. The sum total of our wants and fancied
wants had been climbing steadily, while our individual
capability in domestic and other simple matters had
been on the decline for a long while.
In the end we decided that my mother and Lucy
should establish themselves in apartments on the out-
skirts of Davenham Minster, which apartments would
serve my mother permanently, with the relinquishment
of a single room after Lucy's marriage. I saw them
both established, gathered my few personal belong-
ings in a trunk and a couple of bags, and started for
London on a brilliantly fine morning toward the end
of June.
At that time a young man went to London as a mat-
ter of course, when launching out for himself. It was
not that folk liked living in the huge city (though,
curiously enough, many did), but they gravitated
toward it because the great aim, always, and in those
conditions necessarily, was to make money. There
was more money " knocking about," so people said,
in London than anywhere else ; so that was the place
for which one made.
I started for London with a capital of precisely
eleven guineas over and above my railway fare
and left it again on the same day.
11
II
AT THE WATER'S EDGE
" Now a little before them, there was on the left-hand of the
Road, a Meadow, and a Stile to go over into it, and that Meadow
is called By -Path-Meadow." The Pilgrim's Progress.
MY friend, Leslie Wheeler, had left Cambridge
a few months before my summons home, in
order to enter his father's office in Moorgate Street.
His father was of the mysteriously named tribe of
" financial agents," and had evidently found it a
profitable calling.
As I never understood anything of even the nomen-
clature of finance, I will not attempt to describe the
business into which my friend had been absorbed ; but
I remember that it afforded occupation for dozens of
gentlemenly young fellows, the correctness of whose
coiffure and general appearance was beyond praise.
These beautifully groomed young gentlemen sat upon
high stools at desks of great brilliancy. They used
an ingenious arrangement of foolscap paper to pro-
tect their shirt-cuffs from contact with baser things,
and one of the reasons for the evident care lavished
upon the disposition of their hair may have been the
fact that they made it a point of honour to go hatless
when taking the air or out upon business during the
day. Their general appearance and deportment in
the office and outside always conveyed to me the
12
AT THE WATER'S EDGE
suggestion that they were persons of some wealth and
infinite leisure; but I have been assured that they
were hard-working clerks, whose salaries, even in these
simpler days, would not be deemed extravagant.
These salaries, I have been told, worked out at an
average of perhaps 120 or 130 a year.
Now London meant no more to me at that time
than a place where, upon rare occasions, one dined in
splendour, went to a huge and gilded music-hall, cul-
tivated a bad headache, and presently sought to ease
it by eating a nightmarish supper, and eating it
against time. My allowance at Cambridge had, no
doubt fortunately for my digestion, allowed of but
few excursions to the capital ; but my friend Wheeler
lived within twenty miles of it, and I figured him
already burgeoning as a magnate of Moorgate
Street. Therefore I had of course written to him of
my proposed descent upon the metropolis, and had
been very kindly invited to spend a week at his father's
house in Weybridge before doing anything else.
Accordingly then, having reached Waterloo by a fast
train, I left most of my effects in the cloak-room
there, and taking only one bag, journeyed down to
Weybridge.
My friend welcomed me in person in the hall of his
father's big and rather showy house, he having re-
turned from the City earlier than usual for that ex-
press purpose. I had already met his mother and two
sisters upon four separate occasions at Cambridge.
Indeed, I may say that I had almost corresponded
with Leslie's second sister, Sylvia. At all events, we
had exchanged half a dozen letters, and I had even
13
THE MESSAGE
begged, and obtained, a photograph. At Cambridge
I thought I had detected in this delicately pretty,
soft-spoken girl, some sympathy and fellow-feeling in
the matter of my own crude gropings toward a philos-
ophy of life. You may be sure I did not phrase it in
that way then. The theories upon which my discon-
tent with the prevailing order of things was based,
seemed to me then both strong and practical ; a little
ahead of my time perhaps, but far from crude or un-
formed. As I see it now, my creed was rather a pro-
test against indifference, a demand for some measure
of activity in social economy. That my muse was
socialistic seems to me now to have been mainly acci-
dental, but so it was, and its nutriment had been
drawn largely from such sources as Carpenter's Civi-
lization: its Cause and Cure, in addition to the stand-
ard works of the Socialist leaders.
It is quite possible that one of the reasons of my
continued friendship with Leslie Wheeler was the fact
that, in his agreeable manner, he represented in per-
son much of the butterfly indifference to what I con-
sidered the serious problems of life, against which my
fulminations were apt to be directed. I may have
clung to him instinctively as a wholesome corrective.
At all events, he submitted, in the main good-
humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and,
by his very complaisance and merry indifference, sup-
plied me again and again with point and illustration
for my sermons.
Leslie's elder sister, Marjory, was his counterpart
in petticoats ; merry, frivolous, irresponsible, devoted
to the chase of pleasure, and obdurately bent upon
14
AT THE WATER'S EDGE
sparing neither thought nor energy over other inter-
ests; denying their very existence indeed, or good-
humouredly ridiculing them when they were forced
upon her. She was a very handsome girl ; I was con-
scious of that ; but, perhaps because I could not chal-
lenge her as I did her brother, her character made no
appeal to me. But Sylvia, on the other hand, with
her big, spiritual-looking eyes, transparently fair
skin, and earnest, even rapt expression; Sylvia
stirred my adolescence pretty deeply, and was assidu-
ously draped by me in that cloth of gold and rose-
leaves which every young man is apt to weave from
out of his own inner consciousness for the persons of
those representatives of the opposite sex in whom he
detects sympathy and responsiveness.
Mrs. Wheeler spoke in a kind and motherly way of
my bereavement, and the generosity of youth somehow
prevented my appreciation of this being dulled by the
fact that, until reminded, she had forgotten whether I
had lost a father or a mother. Indeed, though not
greatly interested in other folk's affairs, I believe that
while the good soul's eyes rested upon the supposed
sufferer, or his story, she was sincerely sorry about
any kind of trouble, from her pug's asthma to the
annihilation of a multitude in warfare or disaster.
She had the kindest heart, and no doubt it was rather
her misfortune than her fault that she could not
clearly realize any circumstance or situation which did
not impinge in some way upon her own small circle.
I met Leslie's father for the first time at dinner
that evening. One could hardly have imagined him
sparing time for visits to Cambridge. He was a fine,
15
THE MESSAGE
soldierly-looking man, with no trace of City pallor in
his well-shaven, purple cheeks. Purple is hardly the
word. The ground was crimson, I think, and over
that there was spread a delicate tracery, a sort of
netted film, of some kind of blue. The eyes had a
glaze over them, but were bright and searching. The
nose was a salient feature, having about it a strong
predatory suggestion. The forehead was low, sur-
mounted by exquisitely smooth iron-gray hair. Mr.
Wheeler was scrupulously fine in dress, and used a
single eye-glass. He gave me hearty welcome, and I
prefer to think that the apparent chilling of his atti-
tude to me after he had learned of my financial cir-
cumstances was merely the creation of some morbid
vein of hyper-sensitiveness in myself.
At all events, we were all very jolly together that
evening, and I went happily to bed, after what I
thought a hint of responsive pressure in my hand-
shake with Sylvia, and several entertaining anecdotes
from Mr. Wheeler as to the manner in which fortunes
had been made in the purlieus of Throgmorton Street.
Launching oneself upon a prosperous career in Lon-
don seemed an agreeably easy process at the end of
that first evening in the Wheeler's home, and the
butterfly attitude toward life appeared upon the whole
less wholly blameworthy than before. What a grace-
ful fellow Leslie was, and how suave and genial the
father when he sat at the head of his table toying
with a glass of port! And these were capable men,
too, men of affairs. Doubtless their earnestness was
strong enough below the surface, I thought for
that night.
16
Ill
AN INTERLUDE
" To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th' observer's sake." POPE.
r \ CHOUGH in no sense unfriendly or lacking in
JL sympathy, I noticed that Leslie Wheeler showed
no inclination to be drawn into intimate discussion of
my prospects. I was not inclined to blame my friend
for this, but told myself that he probably acted upon
paternal instructions. For me, however, it was im-
possible to lay aside for long, thoughts regarding my
immediate future. I was aware that a nest-egg of
eleven or twelve pounds was not a very substantial
barrier between oneself and want. Mr. Wheeler told
no more stories of fortunes built out of nothing in the
City, but he did take occasion to refer casually to the
fact that City men did not greatly care for the prod-
ucts of public schools and universities, as employees.
I was more than half-inclined to ask why, in this
case, Leslie had been sent to Rugby and Cambridge,
but decided to avoid the personal application of his
remark. It was, after all, no more than the expression
of a commonly accepted view, striking though it
seems as a comment upon the educational system of
the period, when one remembers the huge proportion
of the middle and upper-class populace which was ab-
17
THE MESSAGE
sorbed by commercial callings of one kind or
another.
There was practically no demand for physical
prowess or aptitude, outside the field of sport and
games, nor even for those qualities which are best
served by a good physical training. One need not,
therefore, be greatly surprised that the public schools
should have given no physical training outside games,
and that even of the most perfunctory character, the
majority qualifying as interested spectators merely,
of the prowess of the minority. But it certainly is
remarkable, that no practical business training, nor
studies of a sort calculated to be of use in later busi-
ness training, should have been given in the schools
most favoured by those for whom business was a life's
calling. In this, as in so many other matters, I sup-
pose we were guided and directed entirely by habit
and tradition; the line of least resistance.
When I talked of my prospects with handsome
Leslie Wheeler his was his father's face, unblem-
ished and unworn our conversation was always
three parts jocular, at all events upon his side. I was
to recast society and mould our social system anew by
means of my pen, and of journalism. I was to pro-
vide " the poor blessed poor " with hot-buttered rolls
and devilled kidneys for breakfast, said Leslie, and
introduce old-age pensions for every British workman
who survived his twenty-first birthday.
I would not be understood to suggest that this sort
of f acetiousness indicated the average attitude of the
period with regard to the horrible fact that the coun-
try contained millions of people permanently in a
18
AN INTERLUDE
state of want and privation. But it was a quite possi-
ble attitude then. Such people as my friend could
never have mocked the sufferings of an individual.
But with regard to the state of affairs, the pitiful
millions, as an abstract proposition, indifference was
the rule, a tone of light cynicism was customary, and
" the poor we have always with us," quoted with a
deprecatory shrug, was an accepted conversational
refuge, even among such people as the clergy and
charitable workers.
And this, if one comes to think of it, was inevitable.
The life and habits and general attitude of the period
would have been absolutely impossible, in conjunction
with any serious face-to-face consideration of a situa-
tion which embraced, for example, such preposter-
ously contradictory elements as these:
The existence of huge and growing armies of abso-
lutely unemployed men; the insistence of the popu-
lace, and particularly the business people, upon the
disbandment of regiments, and upon great naval and
military reductions, involving further unemployment;
the voting of considerable sums for distribution
among the unemployed ; violent opposition to the
mere suggestion of State aid to enable the unem-
ployed of England to migrate to those parts of the
Empire which actually needed their labour; the in-
creasing difficulty of the problem which was wrapped
up in the question of " What to do with our sons " ;
the absolute refusal of the nation to admit of uni-
versal military service ; the successive closing by
tariff of one foreign market after another against
British manufactures, and the hysterical refusal of
19
the people to protect their own markets from what
was graphically called the " dumping " into them of
the surplus products of other peoples.
It is a queer catalogue, with a ring of insanity
about it ; but these were the merest commonplaces of
life at that time, and the man who rebelled against
them was a crank. My friend Leslie's attitude was
natural enough, therefore; and, with a few excep-
tions, it was my own, for, curiously enough, the
political school I favoured was, root and branch,
opposed to the only possible remedies for this situa-
tion. Liberals, Radicals, Socialists, and the majority
of those who arrogated to themselves the title of
Social Reformers ; these were the people who insisted,
if not upon the actual evils and sufferings indicated
in this illustrative note of social contradictions, then
upon violent opposition to their complements in the
way of mitigation and relief. And I was keenly of
their number.
Many of these matters I discussed, or perhaps I
should say, dilated upon, in conversation with Sylvia,
while her brother and father were in London. We
would begin with racquets in the tennis-court, and end
late for some meal, after long wanderings among the
pines. And in Sylvia, as it seemed to me, I found the
most delightfully intelligent responsiveness, as well as
sympathy. My knowledge of feminine nature, its
extraordinary gifts of emotional and personal intui-
tion, was of the scantiest, if it had any existence at
all. But my own emotional side was active, and my
mind an inchoate mass of ideals and more or less
sentimental longings for social betterment. And so,
20
AN INTERLUDE
with Sylvia's gentle acquiescence, I rearranged the
world.
Much I have forgotten, and am thus spared the
humiliation of recounting. But, as an example of
what I recall, I remember a conversation which arose
from our passing a miniature rifle-range which some
local resident " Some pompous Jingo of retro-
gressive tendencies," I called him had erected with
a view to tempting young Weybridge into marksman-
ship ; a tolerably forlorn prospect at that time.
" Is it not pathetic," I said, " in twentieth-century
England, to see such blatant attacks upon progress
as that? "
Sylvia nodded gravely ; sweetly sympathetic un-
derstanding, as I saw it. And, after all, why not?
Understanding of my poor bubbling mind, anyhow,
and Nature's furnishing of young women's minds
is a mighty subtle business, not very much more
clearly understood to-day than in the era of knight-
errantry.
Sylvia nodded gravely, as I spurned the turf by
the range.
" Here we are surrounded by quagmires of poverty,
injustice, social anomalies, and human distress, and
this poor soul a rich pork-butcher, angling for the
favours of a moribund political party, I dare say
lavishes heaven knows how many pounds over an ar-
rangement by which young men are to be taught how
to kill each other with neatness and despatch at a dis-
tance of half a mile! It is more tragical than farci-
cal. It is enough to make one despair of one's
fellow countrymen, with their silly bombast about
21
THE MESSAGE
* Empire,' and their childish waving of flags. ' Em-
pire,' indeed ; God save the mark ! And our own little
country groaning, women and children wailing, for
some measure of common-sense internal reform ! "
" It is dreadful, dreadful," said Sylvia. My heart
leapt out to meet the gentle goodness of her. " But
still, I suppose there must be soldiers," she added.
Of course, this touched me off as a spark applied to
tinder.
" But that is just the whole crux of the absurdity,
and as long as so unreal a notion is cherished we can
never be freed from the slavery of these huge arma-
ments. Soldiers are only necessary if war is neces-
sary, and war can only be necessary while men are
savages. The differences between masters and men
are far more vital and personal than the differences
between nations ; yet they have long passed the crude
stage of thirsting for each other's destruction as a
means of settling quarrels. War is a relic of bar-
barous days. So long as armies are maintained,
unscrupulous politicians will wage war. If we, who
call ourselves the greatest nation in Christendom,
would even deserve the credit of plain honesty, we
must put away savagery, and substitute boards of
arbitration for armies and navies."
" Yes, I see," said Sylvia, her face alight with
interest, " I feel that must be the true, the Christian
view. But suppose the other nations would not agree
to arbitration ? "
" But there is not a doubt they would. Can you
suppose that any people are so insensate as really to
22
AN INTERLUDE
like war, carnage, slaughter, for their own sake, when
peaceful alternatives are offered? "
" No, I suppose not ; and, indeed, I feel that all
you say is true, Mr. Mordan."
" Please don't say * Mr. Mordan,' Sylvia. Even
your mother and sister call me Dick. No, no, the
other nations would be only too glad to follow our
lead, and we, as the greatest Power, should take that
lead. What could their soldiers do to a soldierless
people, anyhow ; and even if we lost at the beginning,
why, ' What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul? ' Of what use is the
dominion of a huge, unwieldy empire when even a tiny
country like this is so administered that. a quarter of
its population live always on the verge of starvation?
Let the Empire go, let Army and Navy go, let us con-
centrate our energies upon the arts of peace, science,
education, the betterment of the conditions of life
among the poor, the right division of the land among
those that will till it. Let us do that, and the world
would have something to thank us for, and we should
soon hear the last of these noisy, ranting idiots who
are eternally waving flags like lunatics and mouthing
absurd phrases about imperialism and patriotism,
national destiny, and rubbish of that sort. Our duty
is to humanity, and not to any decayed symbols of
feudalism. The talk of patriotism and imperialism
is a gigantic fraud, and the tyranny of it makes our
names hated throughout the world. We have no
right to enforce our sway upon the peace-loving
farmers and the ignorant blacks of South Africa.
They rightly hate us for it, and so do the millions
23
THE MESSAGE
of India, upon whom our yoke is held by armies of
soldiers who have to be maintained by their victims.
It casts one down to think of it, just as the sight of
those ridiculous rifle-butts and the thought of the
diseased sentiment behind them depresses one."
" It all seems very mad and wrong, but but I
wish you would not take it so much to heart," said
Sylvia.
" That is very sweet of you," I told her ; " and,
indeed, there is not so much real cause to be down-
hearted. The last elections showed clearly enough
that the majority of our people are alive to all this.
The leaven of enlightenment is working strongly
among the people, and the old tyranny of Jingoism
is dying fast. One sees it in a hundred ways. Boer
independence has as warm friends in our Parliament
as on the veld. The rising movements of interna-
tionalism, of Pan-Islam, the Swadeshi movement, the
rising toward freedom in India ; all these are largely
directed from Westminster. The Jingo sentiment
toward Germany, a really progressive nation, full of
natural and healthy ambitions, is being swept away
by our own statesmen ; by their courteous and
friendly attitude toward the Kaiser, who delights to
honour our present Minister of War. Also, the work
of disarmament has begun. The naval estimates are
being steadily ^pruned, and whole regiments have been
finally disbanded. And all this comes from within.
So you see we have some grounds for hopefulness. It
is a great step forward, for our own elected leaders
to show the enthusiastic and determined opposition
they are showing to the old brutal p retentions of
AN INTERLUDE
England to sway the world by brute strength. But,
forgive me ! Perhaps I tire you with all this
Sylvia."
" No, no, indeed you don't Dick, I I think it
is beautiful. It it seems to make everything big-
ger, more kind and good. It interests me, immensely."
And I knew perfectly well that I had not tired her
wearisome though the recital of it all may be now.
For I knew instinctively how the personal note told in
the whole matter. I had been really heated, and per-
fectly sincere, bait a kind of subconscious cunning
had led me to utilize the heat of the moment in intro-
ducing between us, for example, the use of first names.
Well I knew that I was not wearying Sylvia. But
coldly recited now, I admit the rhodomontade to be
exceedingly tiresome. My excuse for it is that it
serves to indicate the sort of ideas that were abroad
at the time, the sort of sentiments which were shaping
our destiny.
After all, I was an educated youth. Many of my
hot statements, too, were of fact, and not merely of
opinion and feeling. It is a fact that the sentiment
called anti-British had come to be served more sla-
vishly in England than in any foreign land. The
duration of our disastrous war in South Africa was
positively doubled, as the result of British influence,
by Boer hopes pinned upon the deliberate utterances
of British politicians. In Egypt, South Africa,
India, and other parts of the Empire, all opposition
to British rule, all risings, attacks upon our prestige,
and the like, were aided, and in many cases fomented,
steered, and brought to a successful issue not by
25
THE MESSAGE
Germans or other foreigners, but by Englishmen, and
by Englishmen who had sworn allegiance at St. Ste-
phens. It is no more than a bare statement of fact
to say that, in the very year of my arrival in London,
the party which ruled the State was a party whose
members openly avowed and boasted of their oppo-
sition to British dominion, and that in terms, not less,
but far more sweeping than mine in talking to Sylvia
among the pines at Weybridge.
But if Sylvia appreciated and sympathized in the
matter of my sermonizing, the rest of the family
neither approved the sermons nor Sylvia's interest in
them. I was made to feel in various ways that no
import must be attached to my attentions to Sylvia.
Marjory began to shadow her sister in the daytime,
and, as she was frankly rather bored by me, I could
not but detect the parental will in this.
Then with regard to my social and political views,
Mr. Wheeler joined with his son in openly deriding
them. In Leslie's case the thing never went beyond
friendly banter. Leslie had no political opinions ; he
laughed joyously at the mere notion of bothering his
head about such matters for a moment. And, in his
way, he represented an enormous section of the
younger generation of Englishmen in this. The
father, on the other hand, was equally typical of his
class and generation. This was how he talked to me
over his port :
" I tell you what it is, you know, Mordan ; you're
a regular firebrand, you know ; by Jove, you are ; an
out-and-out Socialistic Radical: that's what you are.
By gad, sir, I don't mince my words. I consider that
26
AN INTERLUDE
er opinions like yours are a danger to the coun-
try ; I do, indeed ; a danger to the country, and
er to the to the Empire. I do, by gad. And
as for your notions about disarmament and that, why,
even if our army reductions are justifiable, which,
upon my word, I very much doubt, it's ridiculous to
suppose we can afford to cut down our Navy. No,
sir, the British Navy is Britain's safeguard, and it
ought not to be tampered with. I'm an out-and-out
Imperialist myself, and er I can tell you I have
no patience with your Little Englandism."
I am not at all sure whether the class Mr. Wheeler
belonged to was not almost the most dangerous class
of all. The recent elections showed this class to be a
minority. Of course, this section had its strong men,
but that it also included a large number of men like
Leslie's father was a fact a fact which yielded
pitiful evidence of its weakness. These men called
themselves " out-and-out Imperialists," and had not a
notion of even the meaning of the word they used.
Still less had they any notion of accepting any role
which involved the bearing of responsibilities, the dis-
charge of civic and national duties.
Mr. Wheeler's aim in life was to make money and
to enjoy himself. He would never have exercised his
right to vote if voting had involved postponing din-
ner. He liked to talk of the British Empire, but he
did not even know precisely of what countries it con-
sisted, and I think he would cheerfully have handed
Canada to France, Australia to Germany, India to
Russia, and South Africa to the Boers, if by so doing
he could have escaped the paying of income-tax.
27
THE MESSAGE
On Sunday night, my last night at Weybridge, I
walked home from church alone with Sylvia. Mar-
jory was in bed with a sore throat, and whatever their
notions as to my undesirability, neither Mr. nor Mrs.
Wheeler were inclined to attend evening service.
Leslie was not home from golf at Byfleet. We were
late for dinner, Sylvia and I, and during our walk
she promised to write to me regularly, and I prom-
ised many things, and suggested many things, and
was only deterred from actual declaration by the
thought of the poor little sum which stood between
me and actual want.
Next morning I went up to town with Leslie and his
father to open my campaign in London. As a first
step toward procuring work, I was to present a letter
of introduction from a Cambridge friend to the editor
of the Daily Gazette. After that, as Leslie said, I
was to " reform England inside out."
IV
THE LAUNCHING
" O Friend ! 1 know not which way I must look
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest
To think that now our life is only drest
For show ; mean handi-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom ! We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest ;
The wealthiest man among us is the best ;
No grandeur now in Nature or in book
Delight us. . . . " WORDSWORTH.
LOOKING back now upon that lonely launch of
mine in London, I see a very curious and sombre
picture. In the living I am sure there must have been
mitigations, and light as well as shade. In the retro-
spect it seems one long disillusion. I see myself, and
the few folk with whom my relations were intimate,
struggling like ants across a grimy stage, in the midst
of an inferno of noise, confusion, pointless turmoil,
squalor, and ultimate cataclysm. The whole picture
is lurid, superhuman in its chaotic gloom; but in the
living, I know there were gleams of sunlight. The
tragic muddle of that period was so monstrous, that
even we who lived through it are apt in retrospect to
see only the gloom and confusion. It is natural,
therefore, that those who did not live through it
should be utterly unable to discern any glimpse of
29
THE MESSAGE
relief in the picture. And that leads to misconcep-
tion.
As a fact, I found very much to admire in London
when I sallied forth from the obscure lodging I had
chosen in a Bloomsbury back street, on the morning
which brought an end to my stay with the Wheelers
at Weybridge. Also, it was not given to me at that
time to recognize as such one tithe of the madness and
badness of the state of affairs. Some wholly bad
features were quite good in my eyes then.
London still clung to its " season," as it was called,
though motor-cars and railway facilities had entirely
robbed this of its sharply defined nineteenth-century
limits. Very many people, even among the wealthy,
lived entirely in London, spending their week-ends in
this or that country or seaside resort, and devoting
the last months of summer with, in many cases, the
first months of autumn, to holiday-making on the
Continent, or in Scotland, or on the English moors or
coasts.
The London season was not over when I reached
town, and in the western residential quarters the sun
shone brightly upon many-coloured awnings and
beautiful decorative plants and flowers. The annual
rents paid by people who lived behind these flowers
and awnings frequently ran into thousands of pounds,
with ten shillings in each pound additional by way of
rates and taxes. To live at all, in this strata, would
cost a man and his wife perhaps eighty to a hundred
pounds a week, without anything which would have
been called extravagance.
Hundreds of people who lived in this way had
30
THE LAUNCHING
neighbours within a hundred yards of their front
doors who never had enough to eat. Even such peo-
ple as these had to pay preposterous rents for the
privilege of huddling together in a single wretched
room. But many of their wealthy neighbours spent
hundreds, and even thousands of pounds a year over
securing comfort and happiness for such domestic
animals as horses, dogs, cats, and the like. Amiable,
kindly gentlefolk they were, with tender hearts and
ready sympathies. Most of them were interested in
some form of charity. Many of them specialized, and
these would devote much energy to opposing the work
of other charitable specialists. Lady So-and-so, who
advocated this panacea, found herself bitterly op-
posed by Sir So-and-so, who wanted all sufferers to
be made to take his nostrum in his special way. Then
sometimes poor Lady So-and-so would throw up her
panacea in a huff, and concentrate her energies upon
the work of some society for converting Jews, who did
not want to be converted, or for supplying red flannel
petticoats for South Sea Island girls, who infinitely
preferred cotton shifts and floral wreaths. Even
these futile charities were permitted to overlap one
another to a bewilderingly wasteful extent.
But the two saddest aspects of the whole gigantic
muddle so far as charitable work went, were un-
doubtedly these: The fact that much of it went to
produce a class of men and women who would not do
any kind of work because they found that by judi-
cious sponging they could live and obtain alcohol and
tobacco in idleness ; and the fact that where charita-
ble endeavour infringed upon vested interests, licit or
THE MESSAGE
illicit, it was savagely opposed by the persons inter-
ested.
The discipline of the national schools was slack,
intermittent, and of short reach. There was posi-
tively no duty to the State which a youth was bound
to observe. Broadly, it might be said that at that
time discipline simply did not enter at all into the life
of the poor of the towns, and charity of every con-
ceivable and inconceivable kind did enter into it at
every turn.
The police service was excellent and crime exceed-
ingly difficult of accomplishment. The inevitable re-
sult was the evolution in the towns of a class of men
and women, but more especially of men, who, though
compact of criminal instincts of every kind, yet com-
mitted no offence against criminal law. They com-
mitted nothing. They simply lived, drinking to
excess when possible, determined upon one point only :
that they never would do anything which could possi-
bly be called work. It is obvious that among such
people the sense of duty either to themselves, to each
other, or to the State, was merely non-existent.
London had long since earned the reputation of
being the most charitable city in the world. Its share
in the production of an immense loafer class formed
one sad aspect of London's charity when I first came
to know the city. Another was the opposition of
vested interests the opposition of the individual to
the welfare of the mass. One found it everywhere. An
instance I call to mind (it happened to be brought
sharply home to me) struck at the root of the terribly
rapid production of degenerates, by virtue of its rela-
32
THE LAUNCHING
tion to pauper children that is, the children to
whom the State, through its boards of guardians,
stood in the light of parents, because their natural
parents were dead, or in prison, or in lunatic asy-
lums, or hopelessly far gone in the state of criminal
inactivity which qualified so many for all three estates.
Huge institutions were built at great expense for
the accommodation of these little unfortunates. Here
they were housed in the most costly manner, the whole
work of the establishment being carried on by a
highly paid staff of servants and officials. The chil-
dren were not allowed to do anything at all, beyond
the learning by rote of various theories which there
was no likelihood of their ever being able to apply to
any reality of life with which they would come in
contact.
They listened to lectures on the making of dainty
dishes in the best style of French cookery, and in
many cases they never saw a box of matches. They
learned to repeat poetry as parrots might, but did
not know the difference between shavings and raw
coffee. They learned vague smatterings of Roman
history, but did not know how to clean their boots or
brush their hair. It was as though experts had been
called upon to devise a scheme whereby children might
be reared into their teens without knowing that they
were alive or where they lived, and this with the great-
est possible outlay of money per child. Then, at a
given age, these children were put outside the massive
gates of the institutions and told to run away and
become good citizens.
It followed as a matter of course that most of them
SB
THE MESSAGE
fell steadily and rapidly into the pit ; the place occu-
pied by the criminally inactive, the " public-house
props." So they returned poor, heavy-laden crea-
tures, by way of charity, to the institutions of the
" rates," thus completing the vicious circle of life
forced upon them by an incredibly wrong-headed,
topsyturvy administration.
For the maintenance of this vicious circle enormous
sums of public money were required. Failing such
vast expenditure, Nature unaided would have righted
matters to some extent, and the Poor Law guardians
would have become by so much the less wielders of
power and influence, dispensers of public money.
Some of these Poor Law guardians gave up more or
less honest trades to take to Poor Law guardianship
as a business ; and they waxed fat upon it.
Every now and again came disclosures. Guardians
were shown to have paid ten shillings a score for such
and such a commodity this year, and next year to have
refused a tender for the supply of the same article
at 9s. 8d. a score, in favour of the tender of a relative
or protege of one of their number at 109s. 8d. a score.
I remember the newspapers showing up such cases as
these during the week of my arrival in London. The
public read and shrugged shoulders.
" Rascally thieves, these guardians," said the Pub-
lic ; and straightway forgot the whole business in the
rush of its own crazy race for money.
" But," cried the Reformer to the Public, " this is
really your business. It is your duty as citizens to
stop this infamous traffic. Don't you see how you
yourselves are being robbed? "
34
THE LAUNCHING
You must picture our British Public of the day as
a flushed, excited man, hurrying wildly along in pur-
suit of two phantoms money and pleasure. These
he desired to grasp for himself, and he was being
furiously jostled by millions of his fellows, each one
of whom desired just the same thing, and nothing
else. Faintly, amidst the frantic turmoil, came the
warning voices in the wilderness:
" This is your business. It is your duty as citi-
zens," etc.
Over his shoulder, our poor possessed Public would
fling his answer:
" Leave me alone. I haven't time to attend to it.
I'm too busy. You mustn't interrupt me. Why the
deuce don't the Government see to it? Lot of rascals !
Don't bother me. I represent commerce, and, what-
ever you do, you must not in any way interfere with
the Freedom of Trade."
The band of the reformers was considerable, em-
bracing as it did the better, braver sort of statesmen,
soldiers, sailors, clergy, authors, journalists, sociolo-
gists, and the whole brotherhood of earnest thinkers.
But the din and confusion was frightful, the pace at
which the million lived was terrific ; and, after all,
the cries of the reformers all meant the same thing,
the one thing the great, sweating public was deter-
mined not to hear, and not to act on. They all meant:
" Step out from your race a moment. Your duties
are here. You are passing them all by. Come to
your duties."
It was like a Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it
was directed at a people who had sloughed all pre-
35
THE MESSAGE
tensions to be ranked among those who respond to
such calls, to any calls which would distract them
from their objective in the pelting pursuit of money
and pleasure.
But I am digressing the one vice which, unfor-
tunately for us, we never indulged or condoned at the
time of my arrival in London. I wanted to give an
instance of that aspect of charity and attempted
social reform which aroused the opposition of vested
interests and chartered brigands in the great money
hunt. It was this: A certain charitable lady gave
some years of her life to the study of those conditions
in which, as I have said, the criminally inactive, the
hopelessly useless, were produced by authorized rou-
tine, at a ruinous cost in money and degeneracy, and
to the great profit of an unscrupulous few.
This lady then gave some further years, not to
mention money, influence, and energy, to the evolution
of a scheme by which these pauper children could
really be made good and independent citizens, and
that at an all-round cost of about one-fifth of the
price of the guardians' method for converting them
into human wrecks and permanent charges upon the
State. The wise practicability of this lady's system
was admitted by independent experts, and denied by
nobody. But it was swept aside and crushed, beaten
down with vicious, angry thoroughness, in one quarter
the quarter of vested interest and authority ;
quietly, passively discouraged in various other quar-
ters ; and generally ignored, as another interrupting
duty call, by the rushing public.
Here, then, were three kinds of opposition the
36
THE LAUNCHING
first active and deadly, the other two passive and
fatal, because they withheld needed support. The
reason of the first, the guardians' opposition, was
frankly and shamelessly admitted in London at the
time of my arrival there. The guardians said:
" This scheme would reduce the rates. We want
more rates. It would reduce the amount of money
at our disposal. We aim at increasing that. It would
divert certain streams of cash from our own channel
into other channels in other parts of the Empire. We
won't have it." But their words were far less civil
and more heated than these, though the sense of them
was as I have said.
The quiet, passive opposition was that of other
workers in charity and reform. They said in effect:
" Yes, the scheme is all right an excellent
scheme. But why do you take it upon yourself to
bring it forward in this direct manner? Are you not
aware of the existence of our B nostrum for
pauper children, or our C - specific for juvenile
emigration ? Your scheme, admirable as it is, ignores
both these, and therefore you must really excuse us if
we Quite so ! But, of course, as co-workers
in the good cause, we wish you well ", and so
forth.
The opposition of the general public I have ex-
plained. It was not really opposition. It was simply
a part of the disease of the period; the dropsical,
fatty degeneration of a people. But the mere fact
that the reformers sent forth their cries and still
laboured beside the public's crowded race-course ; that
such people as the lady I have mentioned existed
37
THE MESSAGE
and there were many like her should show that
London as I found it was not all shadow and gloom,
as it seems when one looks back upon it from the clear
light of better days.
The darkness, the confusion, and the din, were not
easy to see and hear through then. From this dis-
tance they are more impenetrable; but I know the
light did break through continually in places, and
good men and women held wide the windows of their
consciousness to welcome it, striving their utmost to
carry it into the thick of the fight. Many broke their
hearts in the effort ; but there were others, and those
who fell had successors. The heart of our race never
was of the stuff that can be broken. It was the
strongest thing in all that tumultuous world of my
youth, and I recall now the outstanding figures of
men already gray and bowed by long lives of strenu-
ous endeavour, who yet fought without pause at this
time on the side of those who strove to check the mad,
blind flight of the people.
London, as I entered it, was a battle-field ; the per-
verse waste of human energy and life was frightful ;
but it was not quite the unredeemed chaos which it
seems as we look back upon it.
Even in the red centre of the stampede (Fleet
Street is within the City boundaries) men in the race
took time for the exercise of human kindliness, when
opportunity was brought close enough to them. The
letter I took to the editor of the Daily Gazette was
from an old friend of his who knew, and told him, of
my exact circumstances. This gentleman received me
kindly and courteously. He and his like were among
38
THE LAUNCHING
the most furiously hurried in the race, but their
handling of great masses of diffuse information gave
them, in many cases, a wide outlook, and where, as
often happened, they were well balanced as well as
honest, I think they served their age as truly as any
of their contemporaries, and with more effect than
most.
This gentleman talked to me for ten minutes, dur-
ing which time he learned most of all there was to
know about my little journalistic and debating expe-
rience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my
views and purposes. I do not think he particularly
desired my services ; but, on the other hand, I was
not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for publi-
cation; I had enthusiasm; and there was my Cam-
bridge friend's letter.
" Well, Mr. Mordan," he said, turning toward a
table littered deep with papers, and cumbered with
telephones and bells, " I cannot offer you anything
very brilliant at the moment ; but I see no reason why
you should not make a niche for yourself. We all
have to do that, you know or drop out to make
way for others. You probably know that in Fleet
Street, more perhaps than elsewhere, the race is to
the swift. There are no reserved seats. The best I
can do for you now is to enter you on the reporting
staff. It is stretching a point somewhat to make the
pay fifty shillings a week for a beginning. That is
the best I can do. Would you care to take that ? "
" Certainly," I told him ; " and I'm very much
obliged to you for the chance."
" Right. Then you might come in to-morrow. I
39
THE MESSAGE
will arrange with the news-editor. And now "
He looked up, and I took my hat. Then he looked
down again, as though seeking something on the floor.
" Well, I think that's all. Of course, it rests with you
to make your own place, or or lose it. I sympa-
thize with what you have told me of your views of
course. You know the policy of the paper. But you
must remember that running a newspaper is a com-
plex business. One's methods cannot always be direct.
Life is made up of compromises, and er at times
a turn to the left is the shortest way to the right
er Good night ! "
Thus I was given my chance within a few hours of
my descent upon the great roaring City. I was
spared much. Even then I knew by hearsay, as I
subsequently learned for myself, that hundreds of
men of far wider experience and greater ability than
mine were wearily tramping London's pavements at
that moment, longing, questing bitterly for work that
would bring them half the small salary I was to earn.
I wrote to Sylvia that night, from my little room
among the cat-infested chimney-pots of Bloomsbury ;
and I am sure my letter did not suggest that London
was a very gloomy place. My hopes ran high.
THE ROARING CITY
A JOURNALIST S EQUIPMENT
" . . . Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry ; and these we adore :
Plain living and high thinking are no more :
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws."
WORDSWORTH.
ACTING on the instructions I had received over-
night, I presented myself at the office of the
Daily Gazette in good time on the morning after my
interview with the editor. A pert boy showed me into
the news-editor's room, after an interval of waiting,
and I found myself confronting the man who con-
trolled my immediate destiny. He was dictating tele-
grams to a shorthand writer, and, for the moment,
took no notice whatever of me. I stood at the end of
his table, hat in hand, wondering how so young-look-
ing a man came to be occupying his chair.
He looked about my age, but was a few years older.
His face was as smooth as the head of a new axe, and
had something else chopper-like about it. He re-
minded me of pictures I had seen in the advertisement
pages of American magazines ; pictures showing a
wedge-like human face, from the lips of which some
such an assertion as " It's you I want ! " was supposed
41
THE MESSAGE
to be issuing. I subsequently learned that this Mr.
Charles N. Pierce had spent several years in New
York, and that he was credited with having largely
increased the circulation of the Daily Gazette since
taking over his present position. He suddenly raised
the even, mechanical tone in which he dictated, and
snapped out the words :
" Right. Get on with those now, and come back in
five minutes."
Then he switched his gaze on to me, like a search-
light.
" Mr. Mordan, I believe? "
I admitted the charge with my best smile. Mr.
Pierce ignored the smile, and said :
" University man? "
Accepting his cue as to brevity, I said : " Yes.
Corpus Christi, Cambridge."
He pursed his thin lips. " Ah well," he said,
" you'll get over that."
In his way he was perfectly right ; but his way was
as coldly offensive as any I had ever met with.
" Well, Mr. Mordan, I've only three things to say.
Reports for this paper must be sound English ; they
must be live stories ; they must be short. You might
ask a boy to show you the reporters' room. You'll
get your assignment presently. As a day man, you'll
be here from ten to six. That's all."
And his blade of a face descended into the heart of
a sheaf of papers. As I reached the door the blade
rose again, to emit a kind of thin bark :
"Ah!"
I turned on my heel, waiting.
42
A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT
" Do you know anything about spelling ? "
I tried to look pleasant, as I said I thought I was
to be relied on in this.
" Well, ask my secretary for tickets for the meet-
ing at Memorial Hall to-day ; something to do with
spelling. Don't do more than thirty or forty lines.
Right."
And the blade fell once more, leaving me free to
make my escape, which I did with a considerable sense
of relief. I found the secretary a meek little clerk,
with a curious hidden vein of timid facetiousness. He
supplied me with the necessary ticket and a hand-bill
of particulars. Then he said:
" Mr. Pierce is quite bright and pleasant this morn-
ing."
" Oh, is he? " I said.
" Yes, very for him. He's all right, you know,
when you get into his way. Of course, he's a real
hustler cleverest journalist in London, they say."
" Really ! " I think I introduced the right note of
admiration. At all events, it seemed to please this
little pale-eyed rabbit of a man, who, as I found later,
was reverentially devoted to his bullying chief, and
positively took a kind of fearful joy in being more
savagely browbeaten by Pierce than any other man
in the building. A queer taste, but a fortunate one
for a man in his particular position.
For myself, I was at once repelled and gagged by
Pierce's manner. I believe the man had ability,
though I think this was a good deal overrated by
himself, and by others, at his dictation; and I dare
say he was a good enough fellow at heart. His
43
THE MESSAGE
manner was aggressive and feverish enough to be
called a symptom of the disease of the period. If the
blood in his veins sang any song at all to Mr. Pierce,
the refrain of that song must have been, " Hurry,
hurry, hurry ! " He and his like never stopped to ask
"Whither? "or "Why?" They had not time. And
further, if pressed for reasons, destination, and so
forth, they would have admitted, to themselves at all
events, that there could be no other goal than success ;
and that success could mean no other thing than the
acquisition of money ; and that the man who thought
otherwise must be a fool a fool who would soon
drop out altogether, to go under, among those who
were broken by the way.
My general aim and purpose in journalistic work,
at the outset, was the serving of social reform in
everything that I did. As I saw it, society was in a
parlous state indeed, and needed awaking to recogni-
tion of the fact, to the crying need for reforms in
every direction. That attitude was justifiable enough
in all conscience. The trouble was that I was at fault,
first, in my diagnosis ; second, in my notions as to
what kind of remedies were required ; and third, as to
the application of those remedies.
Like the rest of the minority whose thoughts were
not entirely occupied by the pursuit of pleasure and
personal gain, I saw that the greatest obstacle in the
path of the reformer was public indifference. But
with regard to the causes of that indifference, I was
entirely astray. I clung still to the nineteenth-cen-
tury attitude, which had been justifiable enough dur-
ing a good portion of that century, but had absolutely
44
A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT
ceased to be justifiable before its end came. This was
the attitude of demanding the introduction of re-
forms from above, from the State.
Though I fancied myself in advance of my time in
thought, when I joined the staff of the Daily Gazette,
I really was essentially of it. Even my obscure work
as reporter very soon brought me into close contact
with some of the dreadful sores which disfigured the
body social and politic at that time. But do you
think they taught me anything? No more than they
taught the blindest racer after money in all London.
They moved me, moved me deeply ; they stirred the
very foundations of my being; for I was far from
being insensitive. But not even in the most glaringly
obvious detail did they move me in the right direction.
They merely filled me with resentment, and a passion-
ate desire to bring improvement, aid, betterment ; a
desire to force the authorities into some action. Never
once did it occur to me that the movement must come
from the people themselves.
Poverty, though frequently a dreadful complica-
tion, was far from being at the root of all the sores.
The average respectable working-class wage-earner
with a wife and family, who earned from 25s. to 35s.
or 40s. a week, would spend a quarter of that wage
upon his own drinking; thereby not alone making
saving for a rainy day impossible, but docking his
family of some of the real necessities of life. But
this was accepted as a matter of course. The man
wanted the beer ; he must have it. The State made
absolutely no demand whatever upon such a man.
But it did for him and his, more than he did for him-
45
THE MESSAGE
self and his family. And, giving positively nothing
to the State, he complainingly demanded yet more
from it.
These were respectable men. A large number of
men spent a half, and even three-quarters of their
earnings in drink. The middle class spent propor-
tionately far less on liquor, and far more upon dis-
play of one kind and another ; they seldom denied
themselves anything which they could possibly obtain.
The rich, as a class, lived in and for indulgence, in
some cases refined and subtle, in others gross ; but
always indulgence. The sense of duty to the State
simply did not exist as an attribute of any class, but
only here and there in individuals.
I believe I am strictly correct in saying that in half
a century, while the population increased by seventy-
five per cent., lunacy had increased by two hundred
and fifty per cent.
Yet the majority rushed blindly on, paying no heed
to any other thing on earth than their own gratifica-
tion, their own pursuit of the money for the purchase
of pleasure. One of the tragic fallacies of the period
was this crazy notion that not alone pleasure, but
happiness, could be bought with money, and in no
other way. And the few who were stung by the pre-
vailing suffering and wretchedness into recognition of
our parlous state, we, for the most part, cherished my
wild delusion, and insisted that the trouble could be
remedied if the State would contract and discharge
new obligations. We clamoured for more rights,
more help, more liberty, more freedom from this and
that; never seeing that our trouble was our incom-
46
A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT
plete comprehension of the rights and privileges we
had, with their corresponding obligations.
Though I knew them not, and as a Daily Gazette
reporter was little likely to meet them, there were men
who strove to open the eyes of the people to the truth,
and strove most valiantly. I call to mind a great
statesman and a great general, both old men, a great
pro-consul, a great poet and writer, a great editor,
and here and there politicians with elements of great-
ness in them, who fought hard for the right. But
these men were lonely figures as yet, and I am bound
to say of the people's leaders generally, at the time of
my journalistic enterprise, that they were a poor,
truckling, uninspired lot of sheep, with a few clever
wolves among them, who saw the people's madness
and folly and preyed upon it masterfully by every
trick within the scope of their ingenuity.
Even those who were honourable, disinterested, and,
for such a period, unselfish, were for the most part
the disciples of tradition and the slaves of that life-
sapping curse of British politics: the party spirit,
which led otherwise honourable men to oppose with
all their strength the measures of their party oppo-
nents, even in the face of their country's dire need.
Then there was the anti-British faction, a party
which spread fast-growing shoots from out the then
Government's very heart and root. The Govern-
ment's half-hearted supporters were not anti-British,
but they were not readers of the Daily Gazette; they
were not, in short, whole-hearted Government sup-
porters. They were Whigs, as the saying went. My
party, the readers of the Gazette, the out-and-out
47
THE MESSAGE
Government party, to whom I looked for real prog-
ress, real social reform; they were unquestionably
riddled through and through with this extraordinary
sentiment which I call anti-British, a difficult thing
to explain nowadays.
With the newly and too easily acquired rights and
liberties of the nineteenth century, with its universal
spread of education, cheap literature, and the like,
there came, of course, increased knowledge, a wider
outlook. No discipline came with it, and one of its
earliest products was a nervous dread of being
thought behind the time, of being called ignorant,
narrow-minded, insular. People would do anything
to avoid this. They went to the length of interlard-
ing their speech and writings with foreign words
often in ignorance of the meaning of those words.
Broad-minded, catholic, tolerant, cosmopolitan
those were the descriptive adjectives which all desired
to earn for themselves. It became a perfect mania,
particularly with the young and clever, the half -edu-
cated, the would-be " smart " folk.
But it was also the honest ambition of many very
worthy people, who truly desired broad-minded under-
standing and the avoidance of prejudice. This
sapped the bulldog qualities of British pluck and
persistence terribly. You can see at a glance how it
would shut out a budding Nelson or a Wellington.
But its most notable effect was to be seen among poli-
ticians, who were able to claim Fox for a precedent.
To believe in the superiority of the British became
vulgar, a proof of narrow-mindedness. But, by that
token, to enlarge upon the inferiority of the British
48
A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT
indicated a broad, tolerant spirit, and a wide outlook
upon mankind and affairs. From that to the senti-
ment I have called anti-British was no more than a
step. Many thoroughly good, honourable, benevo-
lent people took that step unwittingly, and all uncon-
sciously became permeated with the vicious, suicidal
sentiment, while really seeking only good. Such
people were saved by their natural goodness and sense
from becoming actual and purposeful enemies of their
country. But as " Little Englanders " so they
were called they managed, with the best intentions,
to do their country infinite harm.
But there were others, the naturally vicious and un-
scrupulous, the morbid, the craven, the ignorant, the
self-seeking; these were the dangerous exponents of
the sentiment. With them, Little Englandism pro-
gressed in this wise : " There are plenty of foreigners
just as good as the British; their rule abroad is just
as good as ours." Then : " There are plenty of
foreigners far better than the British ; their rule
abroad is better than ours." Then : " Let the people
of our Empire fend for themselves among other peo-
ples ; our business is to look after ourselves." Then :
" We oppose the people of the Empire ; we oppose
British rule; we oppose the British." From that to
" We befriend the enemies of the British " was less
than a step. It was the position openly occupied by
many, in and out of Parliament.
" We are for you, for the people ; and devil take
Flag, Empire, and Crown ! " said these ranters ;
drunken upon liberties they never understood, free-
49
THE MESSAGE
dam they never earned, privileges they were not qual-
ified to hold.
There were persons among them who spat upon the
Flag that protected their worthless lives, and cut it
down ; sworn servants of the State who openly pro-
claimed their sympathy with the State's enemies ;
carefully protected, highly privileged subjects of the
Crown, who impishly slashed at England's robes, to
show her nakedness to England's foes.
And these were supporters, members, proteges of
the Government, and readers of the Daily Gazette,
upheld in all things by that organ. And I, the son of
an English gentleman and clergyman, graduate of an
English university, I looked to this party, the Liberal
Government of England, as the leaders of reform, of
progress, of social betterment. And so did the coun-
try; the British public. Errors of taste and judg-
ment we regretted. That was how we described the
most ribald outbursts of the anti-British sentiment.
It is hard to find excuse or palliation. Instinct
must have told us that the demands, the programme,
of such diseased creatures, could only aggravate the
national ills instead of healing them. Yes, it would
seem so. I can only say that comparatively few
among us did see it. Perhaps disease was too general
among us for the recognition of symptoms.
This then was the mental attitude with which I ap-
proached my duties as a reporter on the staff of a
London daily newspaper of old standing and good
progressive traditions. And my notion was that in
every line written for publication, the end of social
reform should be served, directly or indirectly. My
50
A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT
idea of attaining social reformation was that the
people must be taught, urged, spurred into extract-
ing further gifts from the State; that the public
must be shown how to make their lives easier by get-
ting the State to do more for them. That was as
much as my education and my expansive theorizing
had done for me. Assuredly I was a product of my
age.
I had forgotten one thing, however, and that was
the thing which Mr. Charles N. Pierce began now to
drill into me, by analogy, and with a good deal more
precision and directness than I had ever seen used at
Rugby or Cambridge. This one thing was that the
Daily Gazette was not a philanthropic organ, but a
people's paper; and that the people did not want
instructing but interesting.
" But," I pleaded, " surely, for their own sakes, in
their own interests "
" Damn their own sakes ! "
" Well, but "
" There's no ' but ' about it. The public is an
aggregation of individuals. This paper must interest
the individual. The individual doesn't care a damn
about the people. He cares about himself. He is
very busy making money, and when he opens his
paper he wants to be amused and interested ; and he
is not either interested or amused by any instruction
as to how the people may be served. He doesn't want
'em served. He wants himself served and amused.
That's your job."
I believe I had faint inclinations just then to
wonder whether, after all, there might not be some-
51
THE MESSAGE
thing to be said for the bloated Tories: the oppo-
nents of progress, as I always considered them. My
thoughts ran on parties, in the old-fashioned style,
you see. Also I was thinking, as a journalist, of the
characteristics which distinguished different news-
papers.
I cordially hated Mr. Charles N. Pierce, but he
really had more discernment than I had, for he said :
" Don't you worry about teaching the people to
grab more from the State. They'll take fast enough ;
they'll take quite as much as is good for 'em, without
your assistance. But, for giving, the angel Gabriel
and two advertisement canvassers wouldn't make 'em
give a cent more than they're obliged."
VI
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
" Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace." YOUNG.
I AM bound to suppose that I must have been a
tolerably tiring person to have to do with during
my first year in London. The reason of this was that
I could never concentrate my thoughts upon intimate,
personal interests, either my own or those of the peo-
ple I met. My thoughts were never of persons, but
always of the people ; never of affairs, but always of
tendencies, movements, issues, ultimate ends. Prob-
ably my crude unrest would have made me tiresome to
any people. It must have been peculiarly irritating
to my contemporaries at that period, who, whatever
they may have lacked, assuredly possessed in a re-
markable degree the faculty of concentration upon
their own individual affairs, their personal part in
the race for personal gain.
I remember that I talked, even to the poor, over-
worked servant at my lodging, rather of the pros-
pects of her class and order than of anything more
intimate or within her narrow scope. Poor Bessie!
She was of the callously named tribe of lodging-
house " slaveys " ; and what gave me some interest
in her personality, apart from the type she repre-
53
THE MESSAGE
sented, was the fact that she had come from the Vale
of Blackmore, a part of Dorset which I knew very
well. I even remembered, for its exceptional pictur-
esqueness and beauty of situation, the cottage in
which Bessie had passed her life until one year before
my arrival at the fourth-rate Bloomsbury " apart-
ments " house in which she now toiled for a living.
There was little enough of the sap of her native
valley left in Bessie's cheeks now. She had acquired
the London muddiness of complexion quickly, poor
child, in the semi-subterranean life she led.
I was moved to inquire as to what had led her to
come to London, and gathered that she had been
anxious to " see a bit o' life." Certainly she saw life,
of a kind, when she entered her horrible underground
kitchen of a morning, for, as a chance errand once
showed me, its floor was a moving carpet of black-
beetles until after the gas was lighted. In Blooms-
bury, Bessie's daily work began about six o'clock
there were four stories in the house, and coals and
food and water required upon every floor and
ended some seventeen hours later. Occasionally, an
exacting lodger would make it eighteen hours the
number of Bessie's years in the world but seventeen
was the normal.
The trains which every day came rushing in from
the country to the various railway termini of London
were almost past counting. The " rural exodus," as
it was called, was a sadly real movement then. Every
one of them brought at least one Bessie, and one of
her male counterparts, with ruddy cheeks, a tin box,
and bright eyes straining to " see life." Insatiable
54
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
London drew them all into its maw, and, while sap-
ping the roses from their cheeks, enslaved many of
them under one of the greatest curses of that day:
the fascination of the streets.
So terrible a power was exercised by this unwhole-
some passion that men and women became paralyzed
by it, and incapable of plucking up courage enough
to enable them to leave the streets. I talked with
men poor, sodden creatures, whose greasy black
coats were buttoned to their stubbly chins to hide the
absence of collar and waistcoat who supported a
wretched existence in the streets, between begging,
stealing, opening cab-doors, and the like, in constant
dread of police attention. Among these I found
many who had refused again and again offers of
help to lead an honest, self-dependent life, for the
sole reason that these offers involved quitting the
streets.
The same creeping paralysis of the streets kept
men from emigration to parts of the Empire in which
independent prosperity was assured for the willing
worker. They would not leave the hiving streets,
with their chances, their flaunting vice, their inces-
sant bustle, and their innumerable drinking bars.
The disease did not stop at endowing the streets
with fascination for these poor, undisciplined, un-
manned creatures ; it implanted in them a lively fear,
hard to comprehend, but very real to them, of all
places outside the streets, with their familiar, pent
noises and enclosed strife.
I met one old gentleman, the head of an important
firm of printers, who, being impressed with the squalid
55
THE MESSAGE
wretchedness of the surroundings in which his work-
people lived, decided to shift his works into the coun-
try. He chose the outskirts of a charmingly situated
garden city, then in course of formation. He gave
his people a holiday and entertained them at a picnic
party upon the site of his proposed new works. He
set before them plans and details of pleasant cottages
he meant to build for them, with good gardens, and
scores of conveniences which they could never know
in the dingy, grimy tenements for which they paid
extortionate rents in London.
There were four hundred and thirty-eight of these
work-people. Twenty-seven of them, with some hesi-
tation, expressed their willingness to enter into the
new scheme for their benefit. The remaining four
hundred and eleven refused positively to leave their
warrens in London for this garden city, situated
within an hour's run of the metropolis.
Figure to yourself the attitude of such people,
where the great open uplands of the Empire were con-
cerned: the prairie, the veld, the bush. Consider
their relation to the elements, or to things elemental.
We went farther than " Little Englandism " in those
days ; we produced little street and alley men by the
hundred thousand ; and then we bade them exercise
their rights, their imperial heritage, and rule an Em-
pire. As for me, I was busy in my newspaper work
trying to secure more rights for them; for men
whose present freedom from all discipline and control
was their curse.
The reporters' room at the office of the Daily Ga-
zette was the working headquarters of five other men
56
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
besides myself. One was a Cambridge man, one had
been at Oxford, one came from Cork, and the other
two were products of Scotch schools. Two of the
five would have been called gentlemen ; four of them
were good fellows ; the fifth had his good points, but
perhaps he had been soured by a hard upbringing.
One felt that the desire for money advancement,
success, or whatever you chose to call it ; it all meant
the one thing to Dunbar mastered every feeling,
every instinct even, in this young man, and made him
about as safe and agreeable a neighbour as a wolf
might be for a kennel of dogs.
A certain part of our time was devoted to waiting
in the reporters' room for what Mr. Pierce called our
" assignments," to this or that reporting task. Also,
we did our writing here, and a prodigious amount of
talking. The talk was largely of Fleet Street, the
ruffianism of Mr. Pierce, the fortunes of our own and
other journals, the poorness of our pay, the arduous-
ness of our labours, the affairs of other newspaper
offices, and the like. But at other times we turned to
politics, and over our pipes and copy paper would
readjust the concert of Europe and the balance of
world power. More often we dealt with local politics,
party intrigue, and scandals of Parliament; and
sometimes more frequently since my advent, it may
be we entered gaily upon large abstractions, and
ventilated our little philosophies and views of the
eternal verities.
By my recollection of those queer confused days,
my colleagues were cynically anarchical in their polit-
ical views, unconvinced and unconvincing Socialists,
57
THE MESSAGE
and indifferent Agnostics. I am not quite sure that
we believed iti anything very thoroughly except
that things were in a pretty bad way. Earnest belief
in anything was not a feature of the period. I recall
one occasion when consideration of some tyrannical
act of our immediate chief, the news-editor, led our
talk by way of character and morality to questions
of religion. The Daily Gazette, I should mention,
was a favourite organ with the most powerful relig-
ious community the Nonconformists. Campbell,
one of the two Scotch reporters, hazarded the first
remark about religion, if I remember aright: some-
thing it was to the effect that men like Pierce had
neither religion nor manners. Brown, the Cambridge
man, took this up.
" Well now," he said, " that's a queer thing about
religion. Fd like you to tell me what anybody's
religion is in London.'*
** It's the capital of a Christian country, isn't it ? "
said Dunbar.
" Yes," admitted Brown. " That's just it. We're
officially and politically Christian. It's a national
affair. We're a Christian people; but who knows
a Christian individual? Ours is a Christian news-
paper, Christian city, Christian country, and all the
rest of it. There's no doubt about it. All England
believes ; but no single man I ever meet admits that
he believes. I suppose it's different up your way,
Campbell. One gathers the Scotch are religious ? "
" H'm ! I won't answer for that," growled Camp-
bell. " As a people, yes, as you say ; but as indi-
58
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
viduals well, I don't kno\r. But my father** a
believer ; I could swear to iL"
"Ah, je; so's mine. But Pm not talking of
fathers. I mean our generation.*'
" Well," I began, " for my part, Pm not BO sure
of the fathers."
" Oh, we can count TOU oat," said Kelly, the Irish-
man. " AH parsons' sons are atheists, as a matter of
course ; and had hats at that."
" Rather a severe blow at oar Christianity, isn't
it ? " said Brown.
I had no more to say on this point, not wishing to
discuss my father. But I knew perfectly weD that
that good, kind man had cherished no belief whatever
in many of what were judged to be the vital dogmas
of Christianity.
^ Well, I've just been thinking," said CampbeH,
" and upon my soul, Brown if I've got one I
believe you're right. I don't know any one of our
generation who believes. Every one thinks every one
else believes, and everybody is most careful not to be
disrespectful about the belief everybody else is sup-
posed to hold. But, begad, nobody believes himself.
We all wink at each other about it; accepting the
certainty of every one else's belief, and only recog-
nizing as a matter of course that yon and me we*we
got beyond that sort of thing."
" Well, I've often thought of it," said Brown.
" I'll write an article about it one of these days."
" Who'll you get to publish it? "
"ITm! Yes, that's a fact. And yet, hang it,
THE MESSAGE
you know, how absurd! Who is there in this office
that believes ? "
" Echo answers, ' who? ' "
" I happen to know that both Rainham and Badde-
ley go to church," said Dunbar, naming a proprietor
and a manager.
" I don't see the connection," said Brown.
" Because there isn't any," said Campbell. " But
Dunbar sees it, and so does the British public, begad.
That's the kernel of the whole thing. That's why
every one thinks every one else, except himself,
believes. Rainham and Baddeley think their wives,
and sons, and servants, and circle generally believe,
and therefore would be shocked if Rainham and
Baddeley didn't go to church. And every one else
thinks the same. So they all go."
" But, my dear chap, they don't all go. The par-
sons are always complaining about it. The women
do, but the men don't not as a rule, I mean ; par-
ticularly when they've got motors, and golf, and
things. You know they don't. Here's six of us here.
Does any one of us ever go to church ? "
Dunbar, looking straight down over his nose, said :
"I do often."
" You're a fine fellow, Dunbar, sure enough," said
Campbell ; " and I believe you'll be a newspaper pro-
prietor in five years. You've got your finger on the
pulse. Can you look me in the face and say you
believe? "
Dunbar smiled in his knowing way and wobbled.
" I certainly believe it's a good thing to go to church
occasionally," he said.
60
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
" And I believe you'll make a fortune in Fleet
Street, my son."
" Well, in my humble opinion," said Kelly, " the
trouble with you people in England is not so much
that you don't believe; a good many believe, in a
kind of a way, like they believe in ventilation, with-
out troubling to act on it. They believe, but they
don't think about it; they don't care, it isn't real.
The poor beggars 'Id go crazy with fear of hell-fire,
if the sort of armchair belief they have was real to
'em. It isn't real to 'em, like business, and money,
and that, or like patriotism is in Japan."
" Well, it really is a rum thing," said Brown, with
an affectation of pathos, " that in all this Christian
country I shouldn't know a single believer of my
generation."
" It's a devilish bad thing for the country," said
Campbell. And even then, with all my fundamentally
rotten sociological nostrums, I had a vague feeling
that the Scotchman was right there.
" Well, then, that's why it's good to go to church,"
said Dunbar, with an air of finality.
" I still don't see the connection," murmured
Brown.
" Because it still isn't there. But, of course, it's
perfectly obvious. That's why Dunbar sees it, and
why he'll presently run a paper." Then Campbell
turned to Dunbar, and added slowly, as though
speaking to a little child : " You see, my dear, it's
not their not going to church that's bad ; it's their
not believing."
If I remember rightly, Mr. Pierce ended the con-
61
THE MESSAGE
versation, through his telephone, by assigning to
Brown the task of reporting a clerical gathering at
Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a par-
ticularly happy touch in the reporting of religious
meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I
remember his saying that day that he thought Chris-
tianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish cli-
mate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju
worship in London would be sure to cause friction
with the County Council.
As I see it now, there was a terribly large amount
of truth in the view taken by Brown and Campbell
and Kelly about belief in England, and more par-
ticularly in London. But there were devout men of
all ages who did not happen to come within their
circle of acquaintance. I met Salvation Army officers
occasionally, who were both intelligent, self-denying,
and hard-working; and I suppose that with them
belief must have been at least as powerful a motive
as devotion to their Army, their General, and the
work of reclamation among the very poor. Also,
there were High Church clergymen, who toiled un-
ceasingly among the poor. Symbolism was a great
force with them ; but there must have been real belief
there. Also, there were some fine Nonconformist mis-
sions. I recall one in West London, the work of
which was a great power for good in such infected
warrens as Soho. But it certainly was not an age of
faith or of earnest beliefs. The vast majority took
their Christianity, with the national safety and integ-
rity, for granted a thing long since established
62
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
by an earlier generation; a matter about which no
modern could spare time for thought or effort.
I believe it was on the day following this partic-
ular conversation in the reporters' room that I met
Leslie Wheeler by appointment at Waterloo, and
went down to Weybridge with him for the week-end.
My friend was in even gayer spirits than usual, and
laughingly told me that I must " Work up a better
Saturday face than that " before we got to Wey-
bridge.
I had known Leslie Wheeler since our school-days ;
and I remember lying awake in the room next his own
at Weybridge that night, and wondering why in the
world it was I felt so out of touch with my high-
spirited friend. During that Saturday afternoon and
evening I had been pretty much preoccupied in secur-
ing as much as possible of Sylvia's attention. But
the journey down had been made with Leslie alone,
and when his father had gone to bed, we two had
spent another half-hour together in the billiard-
room, smoking and sipping whiskey and soda. Leslie
was in the vein most usual with him, of " turning to
mirth all things on earth " ; and I was conscious,
upon my side, of a notable absence of reciprocal
feeling, of friendly rapport. And I could find no
explanation for this, as I lay thinking of it in bed.
Looking backward, I see many causes which prob-
ably contributed to my feeling of lost touch. I had
only been about a month in London, but it had been
a busy month, and full of new experiences, of inti-
mate touch with realities of London life, sordid and
otherwise. It was all very unlike Rugby and Cam-
63
THE MESSAGE
bridge; very unlike the life of the big luxurious
Weybridge house, and even more unlike lichen-cov-
ered Tarn Regis. In those days I took little stock
of such mundane details as bed and board. But these
things count; I had been made to take note of them
of late.
I paid 12s. 6d. a week for my garret, and 7s. a
week for my breakfast, Is. for lighting, and Is. for
my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week for daily
lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the
eternal penny outgoings of London life. The pur-
chase of such a trifle as a box of sweets for Sylvia
made a week's margin look very small. Already I
had begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laun-
dry work, omnibus fares, and such matters. My
training had not been a hopeful one, so far as small
economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting
golf, and failing to attend the Inter-'Varsity cricket
match. He found economy, like all other things
under heaven, and in heaven for that matter, suit-
able subjects for the exercise of his tireless humour.
But I wondered greatly that his incessant banter
should jar upon me; that I should catch myself re-
garding him with a coldly appraising eye. Indeed,
it troubled me a good deal; and the more so when
I thought of Sylvia.
I flatly declined to admit that London had affected
my feeling for Sylvia. Whatever one's view, her big
violet eyes were abrim with gentle sympathy. I
watched her as I sat by her side in church, and
thought of our irreverent talk at the office. Here
was sincere piety, at all events, I thought. Mediae-
64
A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS
valism never produced a sweeter devotee, a worshipper
more rapt. I could not follow her into the place
of ecstasy she reached. But, I told myself, I could
admire from without, and even reverence. Could I?
Well, I was somewhat strengthened in the belief that
very Sunday night by Sylvia's father.
65
VII
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
"If faith produce no works, I see
That faith is not a living tree." HANNAH MORE.
DURING that Sunday at Weybridge I saw but
little of my friend Leslie. It was only by
having obtained special permission from the Daily
Gazette office that I was able to remain away from
town that day. My leisure was brief, my chances
few, I felt; and that seemed to justify the devoting
of every possible moment to Sylvia's company.
Sylvia's church was not the family place of wor-
ship. When Mrs. Wheeler and Marjory attended
service, it was at St. Mark's, but Sylvia made her
devotions at St. Jude's, a church famous in that dis-
trict for its high Anglicanism and stately ritual.
The incumbent of St. Jude's, his Reverence, or
Father Hinton, as Sylvia always called him, was a
tall, full-bodied man, with flashing dark eyes, and a
fine, dramatic presence. I believe he was an inde-
fatigable worker among the poor. I know he had
a keen appreciation of the dramatic element in his
priestly calling, and in the ritual of his church, with
its rich symbolism and elaborate impressiveness.
Even from my brief glimpses of the situation, I
realized that this priest (the words clergyman and
66
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
vicar were discouraged at St. Jude's) played a very
important, a vital part, in the scheme of Sylvia's re-
ligion. I think Sylvia would have said that the per-
sonality of the man was nothing ; but she would have
added that his office was much, very much to her.
She may have been right, though not entirely so,
I think. But it is certain that, in the case of Father
Hinton, the dramatic personality of the man did
nothing to lessen the magnitude of his office in the
minds of such members of his flock as Sylvia. I
gathered that belief in the celibacy of the clergy was,
if not an article of faith, at least a part of piety at
St. Jude's.
Before seven o'clock on Sunday morning I heard
footsteps on the gravel under my window, and, look-
ing out, saw Sylvia, book in hand, leaving the house.
She was exquisitely dressed, the distinguishing note
of her attire being, as always in my eyes, a demure
sort of richness and picturesqueness. Never was
there another saint so charming in appearance, I
thought. Her very Prayer Book, or whatever the
volume might be, had a seductive, feminine charm
about its dimpled cover.
I hurried over my dressing and was out of the
house by half-past seven and on my way to St.
Jude's. Breakfast was not until half-past nine, I
knew. The morning was brilliantly sunny; and life
in the world, despite its drawbacks and complexities,
as seen from Fleet Street, seemed an admirably good
thing to me as I strode over a carpet of pine-needles,
and watched the slanting sun-rays turning the tree
trunks to burnished copper.
67
THE MESSAGE
The service was barely over when I tiptoed into a
seat beside the door at St. Jude's. At this period the
appurtenances of ritual in such churches as St. Jude's
incense, candles, rich vestments, and the like
rivalled those of Rome itself. I remember that, fresh
from the dewy morning sunshine without, these sym-
bols rather jarred upon my senses than otherwise,
with a strong hint of artificiality and tawdriness, the
suggestion of a theatre seen by daylight. But they
meant a great deal to many good folks in Wey-
bridge, for, despite the earliness of the hour, there
were fifty or sixty women present, besides Sylvia, and
half a dozen men.
I could see Sylvia distinctly from my corner by the
door, and I was made rather uneasy by the fact that
she remained in her place when every one else had left
the building. Five, ten minutes I waited, and then
walked softly up the aisle to her place. I did not
perceive, until I reached her side, that she was kneel-
ing, or I suppose I should have felt obliged to refrain
from disturbing her. As it was, Sylvia heard me,
and, having seen who disturbed her, rose, with the
gravest little smile, and, with a curtsy to the altar,
walked out before me.
I found that Sylvia generally stayed on in the
church for the eight o'clock service ; and I was duly
grateful when she yielded to my solicitations and set
out for a walk with me instead. I had taken a few
biscuits from the dining-room and eaten them on my
way out; but I learned later, rather to my distress,
that Sylvia had not broken her fast. I must suppose
she was accustomed to such practices, for she seemed
68
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
to enjoy almost as much as I did our long ramble in
the fresh morning air.
I learned a good deal during that morning walk,
and the day that followed it, the greater part of
which I spent by Sylvia's side. Upon the whole, I
was perturbed and made uneasy ; but I continued to
assure myself, perhaps too insistently for confidence
or comfort, that Sylvia was wholly desirable and
sweet. It was perhaps unfortunate for my peace of
mind that the day was one of continuous religious
exercises. The fact tinged all our converse, and in-
deed supplied the motive of most of it.
I did not at the time realize exactly what chilled
and disturbed me, but I think now that it was what
I might call the inhumanity of Sylvia's religion. I
dipped into one of her sumptuous little books at some
time during the day, and I remember this passage:
" To this end spiritual writers recommend what is
called a * holy indifference ' to all created things, in-
cluding things inanimate, place, time, and the like.
Try as far as possible to be indifferent to all things.
Remember that the one thing important above all
others to you is the salvation of your own soul. It
is the great work of your life, far greater than your
work as parent, child, husband, wife, or friend."
It was a reputable sort of a book this, and fathered
by a respected Oxford cleric.
There was singularly little of the mystic in my
temperament. My mind, as you have seen, was sur-
charged with crude but fervent desires for the mate-
rial betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not
interested in human well-being, material progress,
69
THE MESSAGE
mortal ills and remedies. Approaching Sylvia's posi-
tion and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way
through what I impatiently dismissed as the " flum-
mery " ; by which I meant the poetry, the pictur-
esqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his
Reverence and St. Jude's ; and found, or thought I
found, that Sylvia's religion was at worst a selfish
gratification of the senses of the individual worship-
per, and at best a devout and pious ministration to
the worshipper's own soul; in which the loving of
one's neighbour and caring for one another seemed
to play precisely no part at all.
True it was, as I already knew, that in the East
End of London, and elsewhere, some of the very High
Church clergy were carrying on a work of real devo-
tion among the poor, and that with possibly a more
distinguished measure of success than attended the
efforts of any other branch of Christian service.
They did not influence anything like the number of
people who were influenced by dissenting bodies, but
those who did come under their sway came without
reservation.
But the point which absorbed me was the question
of how this particular aspect of religion affected
Sylvia. In this, at all events, it seemed to me a far
from helpful or wholesome kind of religion. Sylvia
liked early morning services because so few people
attended them. It was " almost like having the
church to oneself." The supreme feature of relig-
ious life for Sylvia had for its emblem the tinkle
of the bell at the service she always called Mass.
The coming of the Presence that was the C Major
70
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
of life for Sylvia. For the rest, meditation, pref-
erably in the setting provided by St. Jude's, with
its permanent aroma of incense and its dim lights
the world shut out by stained glass this, with
prayer, genuflections, and the ecstasy of long
thought upon the circumstances of the supreme act
of Christ's life upon earth, seemed to me to represent
the sum total of Sylvia's religion.
But, over and above what was to me the chilling
negativeness of all this, its indifference to the human
welfare of all other mortals, there was in Sylvia's
religion something else, which I find myself unable,
even now, to put into words. Some indication of it,
perhaps, is given by the little passage I have quoted
from one of her books. It was the one thing positive
which I found in my lady's religion ; all the rest was
to me a beautiful, intricate, purely artificial negation
of human life and human interest.
This one thing positive struck into my vitals with
a chill premonition, as of something unnatural and,
to me, unfathomable. It was a sentiment which I can
only call anti-human. Even as those of Sylvia's per-
suasion held that the clergy should be celibate, so it
seemed to me they viewed all purely human loves, ties,
emotions, sentiments, and interests generally with a
kind of jealous suspicion, as influences to be belittled
as far as possible, if not actually suppressed.
Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no
concern with Puritanism, for it lacked the discipline,
the self-restraint that made Cromwell's men invin-
cible. There was no Puritanism in the influence
which could make women indifferent to the earthly
71
THE MESSAGE
ties of love and sentiment, to children, to the home
and domesticity, while at the same time implanting
in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense,
rich vestments, gorgeous decorations, and the whole
paraphernalia of such a service as that of St. Jude's,
Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would
be more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this re-
ligion, did not say:
" Deny yourself this or that."
It said:
" Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny
all other mortals. Wrap yourself in yourself, think-
ing only of your own soul and its relation to its
Maker and Saviour."
This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though
she was sweetly kind and sympathetic to me, Dick
Mordan, I was strangely chilled and perturbed by
realization of the fact that nothing human really
weighed with her, unless her own soul was human ;
that the people, our fellow men and women, of whose
situation and welfare I thought so much, were far
less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints ;
that humanity had even less import for her, was less
real, than to me, was the fascination of St. Jude's
incense-laden atmosphere.
Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for
me; the personality which animated and informed
it chilled and repelled me as it might have been a
thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear im-
portance of some one of humanity's claims, the far-
away gaze of her beautiful eyes, with their light that
never was on sea or land, her faintly superior smile
72
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with
more baffling effect.
And then the accidental touch of her little hand
would bring me back, with pulses fluttering, and the
warm blood in my veins insisting that sweet Sylvia
was adorable; that everything would be well lost in
payment for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I
spent that pleasant Sabbath day, attached to Sylvia
by ties over which my mind had small control ; by
bonds which, if the truth were known, were not
wholly dissimilar, I believe, from the ties which drew
her daily to the heavy atmosphere of the sanctuary
rails of St. Jude's.
In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and
smoke a cigar with him in his private room, and the
invitation was not one to be evaded. I was subcon-
sciously aware that it elicited a meaning exchange of
glances between Marjory and her mother.
" Well, Mordan, I hope things go well with you in
Fleet Street," said Mr. Wheeler, when his cigar was
alight and we were both seated in his luxurious little
den.
" Oh, tolerably," I said. " Of course, I am quite
an obscure person there as yet; quite on the lowest
rungs, you know."
" Quite so ; quite so ; and from all I hear, compe-
tition is as keen there as in the City, though the re-
wards are rather different, of course."
I nodded, and we were silent for a few moments.
Then he flicked a little cigar-ash into a tray and
looked up sharply, with quite the Moorgate Street
expression, I remember thinking.
73
THE MESSAGE
" I think you are a good deal attracted by my
youngest girl, Mordan ? " he said ; and his tone de-
manded a reply even more than his words.
" Yes, I certainly admire her greatly," I said,
more than a little puzzled by the wording of the
question ; more than a little fluttered, it may be ; for
it seemed to me a welcoming sort of question, and I
was keenly aware of my ineligibility as a suitor.
" Exactly. That is no more than I expected to
hear from you. Indeed, I think anything less would
well, I shouldn't have been at all pleased with
anything less."
His complaisance quite startled me. Somehow, too,
it reminded me of my many baffled retirements of that
day, before the elements in Sylvia's character which
chilled and repelled me. I was almost glad that I had
not committed myself to any warmer or more definite
declaration. Mr. Wheeler weighed his cigar with
nice care.
" Yes," he continued. " If you had disputed the
attraction the attachment, I should perhaps say
I should have found serious ground for criticizing
your your behaviour to my girl. As it is, of
course, the thing is natural enough. You have been
attracted ; the child is attractive ; and you have paid
her marked attentions which is what any young
man might be expected to do."
" If he is going to suggest an engagement," I
thought, " I must be very clear about my financial
position, or want of position." Mr. Wheeler con-
tinued thoughtfully to eye his cigar.
" Yes, it is perfectly natural," he said ; " and you
74.
will probably think, therefore, that what I am going
to say is very unnatural and unkind. But you must
just bear in mind that I am a good deal older than
you, and, also, I am Sylvia's father."
I nodded, with a new interest.
" Well, now, Mordan, let me say first that I know
my girls pretty well, and I am quite satisfied that
Sylvia is not fitted to be a poor man's wife. You
would probably think her far better fitted for that
part than her sister, because Marjory is a lot more
gay and frivolous. Well, you would be wrong.
They are neither of them really qualified for the post,
but Sylvia is far less so than Marjory. In point of
fact she would be wretched in it, she would fail in
it ; and I may say that the fact would not make
matters easier for her husband."
There did not seem to me any need for a reply, but
I nodded again ; and Mr. Wheeler resumed, after a
long draw at his cigar. He smoked a very excellent,
rather rich Havana.
" Yes, girls are different now from the girls I
sweethearted with; and girls like mine must have
money. I dare say you think Sylvia dresses very
prettily, in a simple way. My dear fellow, her laun-
dry bill alone would bankrupt a newspaper reporter."
I may have indicated before, that Mr. Wheeler
was not a person of any particular refinement. He
had made the money which provided a tolerably
costly up-bringing for his children, but his own edu-
cation I gathered had been of a much more exiguous
character. There was, as I know, a good deal of
truth in what he said of the girl of the period.
75
THE MESSAGE
" Well, now, I put it to you, Mordan, whether, ad-
mitting that what I say about Sylvia is true and
you may take it from me that it is true whether
it would be very kind or fair on my part to allow you
to go on paying attention to her at the rate of
say to-day's. Do you think it would be wise or kind
of me to allow it? I say nothing about your side in
the matter, because well, because I still have some
recollection of how a young fellow feels in such a
case. But would it be wise of me to allow it ? "
He was a shrewd man, this father of Sylvia, and of
my old friend; and I have no doubt that the tactics
I found so disarming had served him well before that
day in the City. At the same time, instinct seemed to
forbid complete surrender on my side.
" It is just consideration of the present difficulties
of my position which has made me careful to avoid
seeking to commit Sylvia in any way," I said.
It was probably an unwise remark. At all events,
it struck the note of opposition, of contumacy, which
it seemed my host had been anticipating; and he
met it with a new inflection in his voice, as who should
say : " Well, now to be done with explanations and
the velvet glove. Have at you ! " What he actually
said was :
" Ah, there's a deal of mischief to be done without
a declaration, my friend. But, however, I don't ex-
pect that you should share my view. I only sug-
gested it on the off chance because well, I suppose,
because that would be the easiest way out for me, as
host. But I don't know that I should have thought
much of you if you had met me half-way. So now
76
A GIRL AND HER FAITH
let me do my part and get it over, for it's not very
pleasant. I have shown you my reasons, which, how-
ever they may seem to you, are undeniable to me.
Now for my wishes in the matter, as a father ; I am
sure there is no need for me to say ' instructions,' so
I say * wishes.' They are simply that for the time
for a year or two, anyhow you should not give me
the pleasure of being your host, and that you should
not communicate in any way with Sylvia. There,
now it's said, and done, and I think we might leave
it at that ; for I don't think it's much more pleasant
for me than for you. I'm sure I hope we shall have
many a pleasant evening together er after a
few years have passed. Now, what do you say
shall we have another cigar, or go in to the ladies ? "
I flatter myself that, with all my short-comings, I
was never a sulky fellow. At all events, I elected to
join the ladies; but my reward was not immediately
apparent, for it seemed that Sylvia had retired for
the night. At least, we did not meet again until
breakfast-time next morning, when departure was
imminent, and the week's work had, so to say, begun.
77
VIII
A STIRRING WEEK
" Ay I we would each fain drive
At random, and not steer by rule.
Weakness ! and worse, weakness bestows in vain.
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive.
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain ;
Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.
Even so we leave behind,
As, charter' d by some unknown Powers,
We stem across the sea of life by night.
The joys which were not for our use design'd ;
The friends to whom we had no natural right,
The homes that were not destined to be ours.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
IT goes without saying that Mr. Wheeler's attitude,
and my being practically forbidden the house at
Weybridge, strengthened and sharpened my interest
in Sylvia. Nothing else so fans the flame of a young
man's fancy as being forbidden all access to its ob-
ject. Accordingly, in the weeks which followed that
Sunday at Weybridge, I began an ardent correspond-
ence with Sylvia, after inducing her to arrange to
call for letters at a certain newspaper shop not far
from the station.
It was a curious correspondence in many ways.
Some of my long, wordy epistles were indited from
78
A STIRRING WEEK
the reporters' room at the Daily Gazette office, in the
midst of noisy talk and the hurried production of
" copy." Others, again, were produced, long after
for my health's sake I should have been in bed ;
and these were written on a corner of my little chest
of drawers in the Bloomsbury lodging-house. I was
a great reader of the poet Swinburne at the time, and
I doubt not my muse was sufficiently passionate seem-
ing. But, though I believe my phrases of endearment
were alliteratively emphatic, and even, as I after-
wards learned, somewhat alarming to their recipient,
yet the real mainspring of my eloquence was the
difference between our respective views of life, Syl-
via's and mine.
In short, before very long my letters resolved them-
selves into fiery and vehement denunciation of Sylvia's
particular and chosen metier in religion, and equally
vehement special pleading on behalf of the claims of
humanity and social reform, as I saw them. I find
the thing provocative of smiles now, but I was terri-
bly in earnest then, or thought so, and had realized
nothing of the absolute futility of pitting tempera-
ment against temperament, reason against conviction,
argument against emotional belief.
We had some stolen meetings, too, in the evenings,
I upon one side of a low garden wall, Sylvia upon the
other. Stolen meetings are apt to be very sweet and
stirring to young blood ; but the sordid consideration
of the railway fare to Weybridge forbade frequent
indulgence, and such was my absorption in social
questions, such my growing hatred of Sylvia's anti-
human form of religion, that even here I could not
79
THE MESSAGE
altogether forbear from argument. Indeed, I believe
I often left poor Sylvia weary and bewildered by the
apparently crushing force of my representations,
which, while quite capable of making her pretty head
to ache, left her mental and emotional attitude as
completely untouched as though I had never opened
my lips.
Wrought up by means of my own eloquence, I
would make my way back to London in a hot tremor
of exaltation, which I took to be love and desire of
Sylvia. And then, as like as not, I would receive a
letter from my lady-love the next day, the refrain of
which would be:
" How strange you are. How you muddle me !
Indeed, you don't understand; and neither, perhaps,
do I understand you. It seems to me you would drag
sacred matters down to the dusty level of your poli-
tics."
The dusty level of my politics ! That was it. The
affairs of the world, of mortal men, they were as the
affairs of ants to pretty Sylvia. A lofty and soaring
view, you say ? Why, no ; not that exactly, for what
remained of real and vital moment in her mind, to the
exclusion of all serious interest in humanity? There
remained, as a source of much gratification, what I
called the daily dramatic performance at St. Jude's ;
and there remained as the one study worthy of serious
devotion and interest Sylvia Wheeler's own soul.
She never sought to influence the welfare of another
person's soul. Indeed, as she so often said to me,
with a kind of plaintiveness which should have soft-
ened my declamatory ardour but did not, she did not
80
A STIRRING WEEK
like speaking of such matters at all ; she regarded it
as a kind of desecration.
No, it did not seem to me a lofty and inspiring
view that Sylvia took. On the contrary, it exercised
a choking effect upon me, by reason of what I re-
garded as its intense littleness and narrowness. The
too often bitter and sordid realities of the struggle
of life, as I saw it in London, had the effect upon
me of making Sylvia's esoteric exclusiveness of inter-
est seem so petty as to be an insult to human intelli-
gence. I would stare out of the train windows, on my
way back from Weybridge, at the countless lights,
the endless huddled roofs of London ; and, seeing in
these a representation of the huge populace of the
city, I would stretch out my arms in an impotent
embrace, muttering:
" Yes, indeed, you are real ; you are more impor-
tant than any other consideration ; you are not the
mere shadows she thinks you ; your service is of more
moment than any miracle, or than any nursing of
one's own soul ! "
And so I would make my way to Fleet Street,
where I forced myself to believe I served the people
by teaching them to despise patriotism, to give noth-
ing, but to organize and demand, and keep on de-
manding and obtaining, more and more, from a State
whose business it was to give, and to ask nothing in
return. I was becoming known, and smiled at mock-
ingly, for my earnest devotion to the extreme of the
Daily Gazette's policy, which, if it made for any-
thing, made, I suppose, for anti-nationalism, anti-
militarism, anti-Imperialism, anti-loyalty, and anti-
81
THE MESSAGE
everything else except State aid by which was
meant the antithesis of aid of the State.
" I've got quite a good j ob for you this afternoon,
Mordan something quite in your line," said Mr.
Charles N. Pierce one morning. " A lot of these
South African firebrands are having a luncheon at
the Westminster Palace Hotel, and that fellow John
Crondall is to give an address afterwards on ' Impe-
rial Interests and Imperial Duties.' I'll give you
your fling on this up to half a column three-quar-
ters if it's good enough ; but, be careful. A sort of
contemptuous good humour will be the best line to
take. Make 'em ridiculous. And don't forget to
convey the idea of the whole business being pluto-
cratic. You know the sort of thing: Park Lane
Israelites, scooping millions, at the expense of the
overtaxed proletariat in England. Jingoism, a sort
of swell bucket-shop business you know the tone.
None of your heroics, mind you. It's got to be news ;
but you can work in the ridicule all right."
I always think of that luncheon as one of the
stepping-stones in my life. However crude and mis-
taken I had been up till then, I had always been sin-
cere. My report of that function went against my
own convictions. The writing of it was a painful
business ; I knew I was being mean and dishonest.
Not that what I heard there changed my views mate-
rially. No; I still clung to my general convictions,
which fitted the policy of the Dally Gazette. But the
fact remained that in treating that gathering as I
did, on the lines laid down by my news-editor, I knew
82
A STIRRING WEEK
that I was being dishonest, that I was conveying an
untrue impression.
In this feeling, as in most of a young man's keen
feelings, the personal element played a considerable
part. I was introduced to the speaker, John Cron-
dall, by a Cambridge man I knew, who came there on
behalf of a Conservative paper, which had recently
taken a new lease of life in new hands, and become
the most powerful among the serious organs of the
Empire party. It is a curious thing, by the way,
that overwhelming as was the dominance of the anti-
national party in politics, the Imperialist party could
still claim the support of the greatest and most
thoughtfully written newspapers.
John Crondall had no time to spare for more than
a very few words with so obscure a person as myself ;
but in two minutes he was able to produce a deep im-
pression upon me, as he did upon most people who
met him. John Crondall had a great deal of per-
sonal charm, but the thing about him which bit right
into my consciousness that afternoon was his earnest
sincerity. As Crewe, the man who introduced me to
him, said afterwards:
" There isn't one particle of flummery in Cron-
dall's whole body."
It was an obviously truthful criticism. You might
agree with the man or not, but no intelligent human
being could doubt his honesty, the reality of his con-
victions, the strength and sincerity of his devotion to
the cause of those convictions. It was perfectly well
known then that Crondall had played a capable third
or fourth fiddle in the maintenance, so far, of the
83
THE MESSAGE
Imperial interest in South Africa. His masterful
leader, the man who, according to report, had in-
spired all his fiery earnestness in the Imperialist
cause, was dead. But John Crondall had relinquished
nothing of his activity as a lieutenant, and continued
to spend a good share of his time in South Africa,
while, wherever he was, continuing to devote his ener-
gies to the same cause.
As for his material interests, Crewe assured me that
Crondall knew no more of business, Soutn African or
otherwise, than a schoolboy. He had inherited prop-
erty worth about a couple of thousand a year, and
had rather decreased than added to it. For, though
he had acted as war correspondent in the Russo-
Japan war, and through one or two " little wars,"
in outlying parts of the British Empire, circum-
stances had prevented such work being of profit to
him. In the South African war he had served as an
irregular, and achieved distinction in scouting and
guiding work.
John Crondall's life, I gathered, had been the very
opposite of my own sheltered progress from Dorset
village to school, from school to University, and
thence to my present street-bound routine in London.
His views were clearly no less opposite to that vague
tumult of resentment, protest, and aspiration which
represented my own outlook upon life. Indeed, his
speech that day was an epitome of the sentiment and
opinions which I had chosen to regard with the utmost
abhorrence.
With Crondall, every other consideration hinged
upon and was subservient to the Imperialist idea of
84
A STIRRING WEEK
devotion to the bond which united all British posses-
sions under one rule. The maintenance and further-
ance of that tie, the absorption of all parts into that
great whole, the subordination of all other interests
to this : that I took to be John Crondall's great end
in life. By association I had come to identify myself,
and my ideals of social reform, entirely with those to
whom mere mention of the rest of the Empire, or of
the ties which made it an Empire, was as a red rag
to a bull.
I have tried to explain something of the causes for
this extraordinary attitude, but I am conscious that
at the present time it cannot really be explained. It
was there, however. We might interest ourselves in
talk of Germany, we might enthusiastically admire
and even model ourselves upon the conduct of a for-
eign people; but mention of the outside places of
our own Empire filled us with anger, resentment,
scorn, and contempt. It amounted to this: that we
regarded as an enemy the man who sought to serve
the Empire. He cannot do that without opposing
us, we said in effect; as one who should say: You
cannot cultivate my garden, or repair my fences,
without injuring my house and showing yourself an
enemy to my family. A strange business ; but so it
was.
Therefore, John Crondall's speech that day found
me full enough of opposition, and not at all inclined
to be sympathetic. But the thing of it was, I knew
him for an honest and disinterested man ; a man
alight with high inspiration and lofty motive ; a man
immeasurably above sordid or selfish ends. And it
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THE MESSAGE
was my task, first, to ridicule him; and, second, to
attach sordidness and self-interest to him. That was
the thing which made the day eventful for me.
John Crondall talked of British rule and British
justice, as he had known them in the world's far
places. He drew pictures of Oriental rule, Boer rule,
Russian rule, savage rule; and, again, of the meth-
ods and customs of foreign Powers in their colonial
administration. When he claimed this and that for
British rule,, and the Imperial unity which must back
it, as such, sneers came naturally to me. The anti-
British sentiment covered that. My qualms began,
when he based his plea upon the value of British
administration to all concerned, the danger to civili-
zation, to mankind, of its being allowed to weaken.
Remember, he spoke in pictures, and in the first
person ; not of imaginings, but of what he had seen :
how a single anti-British speech in London, meant a
month's prolongation of bloody strife in one country,
or an added weight of cruel oppression in another.
Right or wrong, John Crondall carried you with him ;
for he dealt with men and things as he had brothered
and known them, before ever he let loose, in a fiery
peroration, that abstract idea of Empire patriotism
which ruled his life.
But it was not all this that made my paltry jour-
nalistic task a hard one. It was my certainty of
Crondall's lofty sincerity. From that afternoon I
date the beginning of the end of my Daily Gazette
engagement. Some men in my shoes would have
moved to success from this point; gaining from it
either complete unscrupulousness, or the bold decision
86
A STIRRING WEEK
which would have made them important as friends or
enemies. For my part I was simply slackened by the
episode. I met John Crondall several times again.
He chaffed me in the most generous fashion over my
abominably unfair report of the luncheon gathering.
He influenced me greatly, though my opinions re-
mained untouched, so far as I knew.
I cannot explain just how John Crondall influenced
me, but I am very conscious that he had a broaden-
ing effect on me he enlarged my horizon. If he
had remained in London things might have gone dif-
ferently with me. One cannot tell. Among other
things, I know his influence mightily reduced the
number and length of my letters to Weybridge. In
my mind I was always fighting John Crondall. It
was my crowded millions of England against his
lonely, sun-browned men and women outside his
world interests. The war in my heart was real, un-
ceasing. And then there was pretty Sylvia and her
little soul, and her meditations, and her daily mira-
cles. The pin-point, bright as it was, became too
tiny for me to concentrate upon it, when contrasted
with these other tumultuous concerns.
Then came a crowded, confused week, in which I
saw John Crondall depart by the South African boat-
train from Waterloo. The first lieutenant of his dead
leader out there had cabled for Crondall to come and
hold his broad shoulders against the side of some
political dam. My eyes pricked when John Crondall
wrung my hand.
" You're all right, sonny," he said. " Don't you
suppose I have the smallest doubt about you."
87
THE MESSAGE
I had never given him anything but sneers and
opposition I, a little unknown scrub of a reporter ;
he a man who helped to direct policies and shape
States. Here he was rushing off to the other side
of the earth at his own expense, sacrificing his own
interests and engagements at home, in the service of
an Idea, an abstract Tie, a Flag. My philosophy had
seemed spacious beside, say, Sylvia's : to secure better
things for those about me, instead of for my own soul
only. But what of Crondall? As I say, my eyes
pricked, even while I framed some sentence in my
mind expressing regret for his wrong-headedness.
Ah, well !
The same week the same day brought me the
gentlest little note of dismissal from Sylvia. Her
duty to her father, and my ideas seemed too much
for her peace of mind ; so bewildering. " I am no
politician, you know ; and truth to tell, these matters
which seem so much to you that you would have them
drive religion from me, they seem to me so infinitely
unimportant. Forgive me ! "
No doubt my vanity was wounded, but I will not
pretend that I was very seriously hurt. Neither could
I ponder long upon the matter, because another letter,
received by the same post, claimed my attention.
Sylvia's letter threw out a hint of better things for
us in a year or two's time. Her notion of a break
between us was " for the present." There were refer-
ences to " later on, when you can come here again,
and we need not hide things." But my other letter
made more instant claims. It was type-written, and
ran thus :
88
A STIRRING WEEK
" DEAR MR. MORDAN : Mr. Chas. N. Pierce
directs me to inform you that after the expiration
of the present month your services will no longer be
required by the editor of the Daily Gazette.
" I am, Sir,
" Yours faithfully,
'" JAMES MARTIN,
" Secretary."
I pictured the little pale-eyed rabbit of a man
typing the dictum of his Napoleon, his hero, and
wondering in his amiable way how " Mr. Mordan "
would be affected thereby, and how he had managed
to displease the great man. As for " the editor of
the Daily Gazette," I had not seen him since the day
of my engagement. But I recalled now various re-
cent signs of chill disapproval of my work on Mr.
Pierce's part. And, indeed, I was aware myself of a
slackness in my work, a kind of reckless, windmill-
tilting tendency in my general attitude.
Meantime, there was the fact that I had recently
encroached twice upon my tiny nest-egg ; once to buy
a wedding present for my sister Lucy, and once for
a piece of silly extravagance.
It was quite a notable week.
A STEP DOWN
" Cosmopolitanism is nonsense ; the cosmopolite is a cipher,
worse than a cipher ; outside of nationality there is neither art, nor
truth, nor life ; there is nothing." IVAN TURGENIEFF.
I HAVE mentioned a piece of reckless extrava-
gance ; it was reckless in view of my straightened
circumstances. And the reason I mention this ap-
parent trifle is that it and its attendant circumstances
influenced me in my conduct after the abrupt termi-
nation of the Daily Gazette engagement.
One of my fellow knights of the reporters' room
introduced me in a certain Fleet Street wine-bar to
one of the characters of that classic highway a
man named Clement Blaine, who edited and owned a
weekly publication called The Mass. I hasten to add
that this journal had nothing whatever to do with any
kind of religious observance. Its title referred to
the people, or rather, to the section of the public
which, at that time, we still described by the quaintly
misleading phrase, " the working classes," as though
work were a monopoly in the hands of the manual
labourer.
The Mass was a journal which had quite a vogue
at that time. This was brought about, I suppose,
90
A STEP DOWN
by the wave of anti-nationalism which, in 1906, estab-
lished the notorious administration which subsequently
became known as " The Destroyers." It was main-
tained largely, I fancy, by Clement Elaine's genius
for getting himself quoted in other journals of every
sort and standing.
The existence of The Mass, and the popularity
which it earned by outraging every civic and national
decency, stands in my mind as a striking example of
the extraordinary laxity and slackness of moral
which had grown out of our boasted tolerance, broad-
mindedness, and cosmopolitanism. We had waxed
drunken upon the parrot-like asseveration of
" rights," which our fathers had won for us, and we
had no time to spare for their compensating duties.
This misquided apotheosis of what we considered
freedom and broad-mindedness, produced the most
startling and anomalous situations in our national
life, including the almost incredible fact that, while
nominally at peace with the world, the State was
being bitterly warred against by cliques and parties
among its own subjects.
For instance, in any other State than our own, my
new acquaintance, Clement Elaine, would have been
safely disposed in a convenient prison cell, and his
flamingly seditious journal would have been promptly
and effectually squashed. In England the man was
free as the Prime Minister, and a Department of
State, the Post Office, was engaged in the distribution
of the journal which he devoted exclusively to stirring
up animosity against that State, and traitorous oppo-
sition to its constitution.
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THE MESSAGE
Further, Mr. Elaine's vitriolic outpourings, his un-
natural defilement of his own nest, were gravely
quoted in every newspaper in the Kingdom, without
a hint of recognition of the fact that they were fun-
damentally criminal and a public offence. The sac-
rosanct "liberty of the subject" was involved; and
though Mr. Blaine would have been forcibly re-
strained if he had shown any tendency to injure
lamp-posts, or to lay hands upon his own worthless
life, he was given every facility in his self-appointed
task of inciting the public to all sorts of offences
against the State, and to a variety of forms of
national suicide.
It was the commonest thing for a Member of Par-
liament, a man solemnly sworn and consecrated to the
loyal service of the Crown and State, to fill a signed
column of Clement Elaine's paper, with an article or
letter the whole avowed end of which would be the
championing of some national enemy or rival, or the
advocacy of means whereby a shrewd blow might be
struck against British rule or British prestige in
some part of the world.
I recall one long and scurrilous article by a Mem-
ber of Parliament, urging rebellious natives in South
Africa to take heart of grace and pursue with ever-
increasing vigour their attacks upon the small and
isolated white populace which upheld British rule in
that part of the Continent. I remember a long and
venomous letter from another Member of Parliament
(a strong advocate of the State payment of mem-
bers) defending in the most ardently sympathetic
manner both the action and the sentiments of a munic-
A STEP DOWN
ipal official who had torn down and destroyed the
Union Jack upon an occasion of public ceremony.
We called this sort of thing British freedom in
those chaotic days ; and when our Continental rivals
were not jeering at the grotesqueness of it, they were
lauding this particular form of madness to the skies,
as well they might, seeing that our insensate profli-
gacy and incontinence meant their gain. The cause
of a foreigner, good, bad, or indifferent that was
the cause Clement Blaine most loved to champion in
his journal. An attack upon anything British,
though the author of it might be the basest creature
ever outlawed from any community that was cer-
tain of ready and eager hospitality in the columns of
The Mass.
I can conceive of no infamy which that journal was
not ready to condone, no offence it would not seek
to justify save and except the crime of patriotism,
loyalty, avowed love of Britain. And this obscene,
mad-dog policy, so difficult even to imagine at this
time, was by curious devious ways identified with
Socialism. The Mass was called a Socialist organ.
The fact may have been a libel upon Socialism, if not
upon Socialists ; but so it was.
Be it said that at Cambridge I had rather surprised
the evangelical section of my college (Corpus Christi)
by the part I played in founding a short-lived insti-
tution called the Anonymous Society, the choicest
spirits in which affected canvas shirts and abstention
from the use of neckties. As Socialists, we invited
the waiters of the college to a soiree, at which a judi-
cious blend of revolutionary economics and bitter
93
THE MESSAGE
beer was relied upon to provide a flow of reasonable
and inexpensive entertainment. The society lapsed
after a time, chiefly owing, if I remember rightly, to
an insufficiency of funds for refreshments. But I
had remained rather a person to be reckoned with at
the Union.
I regarded my meeting with Clement Blaine as
something of an event, and I very cheerfully and
quite gratuitously contributed an article to his jour-
nal dealing with some form of government subvention
which I held to be a State duty. (We wasted few
words over the duties of the citizen in those days. ) It
was as a result of that article that I was invited to
a Socialist soiree in which the moving spirit, at all
events in the refreshment-room, was Mr. Clement
Blaine. Here I met a variety of queer fish who called
themselves Socialists. They were of both sexes, and
upon the whole they were a silly, inconsequent set.
Their views rather wearied me, despite my predispo-
sition to favour them.
They were a kind of tepid, ineffectual anarchists,
unconvinced and wholly unconvincing. Broadly
speaking, theirs was a policy of blind reversal. They
were not constructive, but they were opposed vaguely
to the existing order of things, and, particularly, to
everything British. They pinned their faith to the
foreigner in all things, even though the foreigner's
whole energies might be devoted to the honest en-
deavour to raise conditions in his country to a level
approaching the British standard. Any contention
against the existing order, and, above all, anything
94
A STEP DOWN
against Britain, appealed directly to these rather
tawdry people.
In this drab, ineffective gathering, I found one
point of colour, like a red rose on a dingy white table-
cloth. This was Beatrice, the daughter of Clement
Blaine. I believe the man had a wife. One figures
her as a worn household drudge. In any case, she
made no appearance in any of the places in which
I met Blaine, or his handsome daughter. Beatrice
Blaine was a new type to me. One had read of such
girls, but I had never met them. And I suppose
novelty always has a certain charm for youth. One
felt that Beatrice had crossed the Rubicon. Men-
tally, at all events, one gathered that she had thrown
her bonnet over the windmill.
Physically, materially, I have no doubt that Bea-
trice was perfectly well qualified to take care of hjer-
self. But here was a very handsome girl who was
entirely without reticence or reserve. With her, many
things usually treated with respect were " all rot."
Beatrice's aim in life was pleasure, and she not merely
admitted, but boasted of the fact. She did not think
much of her father's friends as individuals. She
probably objected to their dinginess. But she ac-
claimed herself a thoroughgoing Socialist, I think
because she believed that Socialism meant the pro-
vision of plenty in money, dresses, pleasures, and so
forth, for all who were short of these commodities.
Perhaps I was a shade less dingy than the others.
At all events, Beatrice honoured me with her favour
upon this occasion, and talked to me of pleasure. So
far as recollection serves me she connected pleasure
95
THE MESSAGE
chiefly with theatres, restaurants, the habit of sup-
ping in public, and the use of hansom cabs. At all
events, within the week I squandered two whole
sovereigns out of my small hoard on giving this
young pagan what she called a " fluffy " evening.
It reminded me more than a little of certain rather
frantic undergraduate excursions from Cambridge.
But Beatrice quoted luscious lines of minor poetry,
and threw a certain glamour over a quarter of the
town which was a warren of tawdry immorality ; the
hunting-ground of a pallid-faced battalion of alien
pimps and parasites.
England was then the one civilized country in the
world which still welcomed upon its shores the outcast,
rejected, refuse of other lands; and, as a matter of
course, when foreign capitals became positively too
hot for irreclaimable characters, they flocked into
Whitechapel and Soho, there to indulge their natural
bent for every kind of criminality known to civiliza-
tion, save those involving physical risk or physical
exertion for the criminal. There were then whole
quarters of the metropolis out of which every native
resident had gradually been ousted, in which the Eng-
lish language was rarely heard, except during a police
raid.
Tens of thousands of these unclassed, denational-
ized foreigners lived and waxed fat by playing upon
the foibles and pandering to the weaknesses of the
great city's native population. Others, of a higher
class, steadily ousted native labour in the various
branches of legitimate commerce. We know now, to
our cost, something of the malignant danger these
96
A STEP DOWN
foreigners represented. In indirect ways one would
have supposed their evil influence was sufficiently ob-
vious then. But I remember that the parties repre-
sented by such organs as the Daily Gazette prided
themselves upon their furious opposition to any hint
of precautions making for the restriction of alien
immigration.
England was the land of the free, they said. Yet,
while boasting that England was the refuge of the
persecuted (as well as the rejected) of all lands, we
were so wonderfully broad-minded that we upheld
anything foreign against anything British, and were
intolerant only of English sentiment, English rule,
English institutions. I believe Beatrice's conviction
of the superiority of the Continent and of foreigners
generally was based upon the belief that:
" On the Continent people can really enjoy them-
selves. There's none of our ridiculous English puri-
tanism, and early closing, and rubbish of that sort
there."
I am rather surprised that the crude hedonism of
Beatrice should have appealed to me, for my weak-
nesses had never really included mere fleshly indul-
gence. But, as I have said, the girl had the charm
of novelty for me. I remember satirically assuring
myself that, upon the whole, her frank concentration
upon worldly pleasure was more natural and pleasing
than Sylvia's rapt concentration upon other kinds of
self -ministration. Ours was a period of self-indul-
gence. Beatrice was, after all, only a little more
nai've and outspoken than the majority in her thirst
97
THE MESSAGE
for pleasure. And she was quite charming to look
upon.
Almost the first man to whom I spoke regarding
my dismissal from the staff of the Daily Gazette was
Clement Elaine. I met him in Fleet Street, and was
asked in to his cupboard of an office.
" You are a man who knows every one in Fleet
Street," I said. " I wish you would keep an eye lift-
ing for a journalistic billet for me."
And then I told him that I was leaving the Daily
Gazette, and spoke of the work I had done, and of
my little journalistic experiences at Cambridge.
He combed his glossy black beard with the fingers
of one hand; a white hand it was, save where ciga-
rettes had browned the first and second fingers; a
hand that had never known physical toil, though its
owner always addressed " working " men as one of
themselves. He wore a fiery red necktie, and a fiery
diamond on the little finger of the hand that combed
his beard. A self-indulgent life in the city was tell-
ing on him, but Clement Elaine was still rather a fine
figure of a man, in his coarse, bold way. He had a
varnished look, and, dressed for the part, would have
made a splendid stage pirate.
" It's odd you should have come to me to-day," he
said. " Look here ! "
He handed me a cutting from a daily paper.
At Holloway, yesterday afternoon, an inquest
was held on the body of a man named Joseph
Cartwright, who is said to have been a journalist.
This man was found dead upon his bed, fully
98
A STEP DOWN
dressed, on Tuesday morning. The medical
evidence showed death to be due to heart failure,
and indicated alcoholism as the predisposing
cause. A verdict was returned in accordance
with the medical evidence.
" He was my assistant editor," said Clement Blaine,
as I looked up from my perusal of this sorry tale.
"Really?" I said.
" Yes, a clever fellow ; most accomplished journal-
ist, but " And Mr. Blaine raised his elbow with a
significant gesture, by which he suggested the act of
drinking.
Within the hour I had accepted an engagement as
assistant editor of The Mass with the magnificent
sum of two pounds a week by way of remuneration.
" It's poor pay," said Blaine. " And I only wish I
could double it. But that's all it will run to at pres-
ent, and well, of course, it counts for something
to be working for the cause as directly as we do in
The Mass"
I nodded, not without qualms. My education made
it impossible for me to accept unreservedly the most
scurrilous features of the journal. But the cause was
good I was assured of that ; and I would intro-
duce improvements, I thought. I was still very inex-
perienced. Meantime, I was not to know the carking
anxiety of the out-of-work. I could still pay my way
at the Bloomsbury lodging. This was something.
Beatrice expressed herself as delighted. I was to
accumulate large sums in various vague ways, and
enjoy innumerable " fluffy evenings " with her.
What a queer mad jumble of a shut-in world our
99
THE MESSAGE
London was, and how blindly self-centred we all were
in our pursuit of immediate gain, in our absolute
indifference to the larger outside movements, the shap-
ing of national destinies, the warring of national
interests ! I remember that we were quite triumphant,
in our little owlish way, that year ; for the weight of
socialistic and anti-national, anti-responsible feeling
had forced a time-serving Cabinet into cutting down
our Navy by a quarter at one stroke. The hurried
scramblers after money and pleasure were much grat-
ified.
" We can make defensive alliances with other Pow-
ers," they said. " Meantime retrench, reduce, cut
down, and give us more freedom in our race. Free-
dom, freedom that's the thing ; and peace for the
development of commerce."
Undoubtedly, as a people, we were fey.
100
FACILIS DESCENSTTS AVEENI
Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.
True love turned round on fixed poles,
Love that endures not sordid ends,
For English natures, freemen, friends,
Thy brothers and immortal souls.
But pamper not a hasty time,
Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings
That every sophister can lime.
Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. TBKNTSOW.
AND now, as assistant editor of The Mass, I en-
tered a period of my life upon which I look
back as one might who, by chance rather than by
reason of any particular fitness for survival, had won
safely through a whirlpool. The next few years
were a troublous time, a stormy era of transition,
for most English people. For many besides myself
101
THE MESSAGE
the period was a veritable maelstrom of confusion,
of blind battling with unrecognized forces, of wasted
effort, neglected duty, futile struggles, and slavish
inertia.
At an early stage I learned to know Clement Elaine
for a sweater of underpaid labour, a man as grossly
self-indulgent as he was unprincipled, as much a
charlatan as he was, in many ways, an ignoramus.
Yet I see now, more clearly than then, that even
Clement Elaine was not all bad. He was not even
completely a charlatan. He believed he was justified
in making all the money he could, in any way that
was possible. It must be remembered, however, that
at that time most people really thought, whatever
they might say, that the first and most obvious duty
in life was to make money for themselves.
Then, too, I think Elaine really believed that the
sort of anti-national, socialistic theories he advocated
would make for the happiness of the people ; for the
profit and benefit of the majority. He was blinded
by lack of knowledge of history and of human nature.
He was an extreme example, perhaps, but, after all,
his mistaken idea that happiness depended upon per-
sonal possession of this and that, upon having and
holding, was very generally accepted at that time.
The old saving sense of duty, love of country, na-
tional responsibility, and pride of race, had faded
and become unreal to a people feverishly bent upon
personal gain only. Nelson's famous signal and
watchword was kept alive, in inscriptions ; in men's
hearts and minds it no longer had any meaning ; it
made no appeal. This is to speak broadly, of course,
102
FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI
and of the majority. We had some noble exceptions
to the rule.
In looking back now upon that period, it seems to
me, as I suppose to all who lived through it, such
a tragedy of confusion, of sordidness, and of futility,
that one is driven to take too sweepingly pessimistic
a view of the time. I have said a good deal of the
anti-national sentiment, because it was undoubtedly
in the ascendant then. As history shows us, this
sentiment ruled ; by it the ship of state was steered ;
by it the defences of the Empire were cut down and
down to the ultimate breaking point. We call the
administration of that period criminally unpatriotic.
As such " The Destroyers " must always figure in
history. But we must not forget that then, as now,
we English people had as good a Government as we
deserved. The spirit of selfish irresponsibility was
not confined to Whitehall.
On the other hand, it must not be supposed that no
patriotic party existed. There was a patriotic party,
and the exigencies of the time inspired some of its
leaders nobly. But the sheer weight of numbers, of
indifference, and of selfishness to which this party
was opposed was too much for it. The best method of
realizing this nowadays is by the study of the news-
paper files for the early years of the century. From
these it will be seen that even the people and journals
in whom devoted patriotism survived, even the leaders
who gave up their time and energy (politics gave us
such a man, the Army another, the Navy another,
literature another, and journalism gave us an editor
in whom the right fire burned brightly) to the task of
103
THE MESSAGE
warning and adjuring the public, and seeking to
awaken the nation to the lost sense of its dangers,
its duties, and its responsibilities ; even these were
forced by the weight of public selfishness into using
an almost apologetic tone, with reference to the com-
mon calls of patriotism and Imperial unity.
People dismissed an obvious challenge of the
national conscience with a hurried and impatient
wave of the hand. They were tired of this ; they had
heard enough of the other; they were occupied with
local interests of the moment, and could not be both-
ered with this or that consideration affecting the wel-
fare of the world-wide shores of greater outside
Britain. And, accordingly, we find that the most
patriotic and public- spirited journal was obliged, for
its life, to devote more attention to a football match
at the Crystal Palace than to a change of public
policy affecting the whole commercial future of a part
of the Empire twenty times greater than Britain.
There were other journals, organs of the self-centred
majority, that would barely even mention an Impe-
rial development of that sort, and then but casually,
as a matter of no particular interest to their readers ;
as indeed it was.
I do not think that retrospection has coloured my
view too darkly when I say that my brief experience
in Fleet Street made me feel that the Daily Gazette
party, the supporters of " The Destroyers " (as
naval folk had named the Government of the day)
consisted of a mass of smugly hypocritical self-seek-
ers; and that the party I served under Clement
Blaine were a mass of blatantly frank self-seekers.
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FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI
Such generalizations can never be quite just, how-
ever. There were earnest and devoted men in every
section of the community. But, as a generalization,
as indicating the typical characteristics of the parties,
I fear that my view has been proved correct.
It would be quite a mistake to suppose that in the
political world the shortcomings were all on one side.
Writers like myself, even men like Clement Blaine,
had only too much justification for the contempt they
poured upon the Conservative party. Selfishness, in-
dolence, and the worship of the fossilized party spirit,
had eaten into the very vitals of this section of the
political world. The form of madness we called party
loyalty made the best men we had willing to sacrifice
national to personal interests. So-and-so must retain
his place ; loyalty to the party demands our support
there and there. We must give it, whatever the con-
sequences. The thing is not easy to understand ; but
it was so, and the strongest and best men of the day
were culpable in this.
The farther my London experiences took me, the
greater became the mass of my shattered illusions,
broken ideals, and lost hopes. I remember my reflec-
tions during a brief visit I paid to my mother in
Dorset, when I had spent an evening talking with my
sister Lucy's husband. Doctor Woodthrop was a
good fellow enough, and my sister seemed happier
with him than one would have expected, remembering
that it was rather the desire for freedom, than love,
which gave her to him.
Woodthrop was popular, honest, steady-going; a
fine, typical Englishman of the period, I suppose.
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THE MESSAGE
In politics he was as his father before him, though
the name had changed from Tory to Conservative.
He talked politics for a week at election time. I
would not say that he ever thought politics. I know
that he had no knowledge, and less interest, where the
affairs of his country were concerned, when I met and
talked with him during that visit. The country's de-
fences were actually of far less importance in his eyes
than the country's cricket averages. As for either
social reform interests in England, or the affairs of
the Empire outside England, he simply could not be
induced to give them even conversational breathing
space. They were as exotic to my sister's husband
as the ethics of esoteric Buddhism. But he was a
thick and thin Conservative. To be sure, he would
have said, nothing would cause him to waver in that.
As for myself, I defended the anti-national party
in its repudiation of Imperial responsibility by argu-
ing that the domestic needs of the country were too
urgent and great to admit of any kind of expendi-
ture, in money or energy, upon outside affairs. We
did not recognize that internal reform and content
were absolutely incompatible with shameless neglect
of fundamental duties.
We were as sailors who should concentrate upon
drying and cleaning their cabin, seeking at all haz-
ards to make that comfortable, while refusing to
spare time for the ship's pumps, though the water
was rising in her hold from a score of external fis-
sures. Our anti-nationalists and Little Englanders
were little cabin-dwellers, shirkers from the open deck,
careless of the ship's hull, and masts, and sails, busily
106
bent only upon the enrichment of their particular
divisions among her saloons.
In the early days of my engagement as assistant
editor of The Mass, I think I may claim that I worked
hard and with honest intent to make the paper repre-
sent truly what I conceived to be the good and helpful
side of Socialism, of social progress and reform.
But, if I am to be frank, I fear I must admit that
within six months of my first engagement by Clement
Elaine, I had ceased to entertain any sincere hope or
ambition in this direction. And yet I remained as-
sistant editor of The Mass.
The two statements doubtless redound to my dis-
credit, and I have little excuse to offer. The work
represented bread and butter for me, and that counted
for something, of course. But I will admit that I
think I could have found some more worthy employ-
ment, and should have done so but for Beatrice
Blaine, my employer's daughter.
Time and time again my gorge rose at being
obliged to play my part very often, as a writer,
the principal part in what I knew to be an abso-
lutely dishonest piece of journalism. Once I remem-
ber refusing to write a grossly malicious and untrue
representation of certain actions of John Crondall's
in the Transvaal. But I am ashamed to say I revised
the proofs of the lying thing, and saw it to press,
when a hireling of Clement Elaine's had prepared it.
The man was a discharged servant of Crondall's, a
convicted thief, as I afterwards learned, as well as a
most abandoned liar. But his scurrilous fabrication,
after publication in The Mass, was quoted at length
107
THE MESSAGE
by the T)aily Gazette, and by the journals of that
persuasion throughout the country.
I hardly know how to explain my relations with
Blaine's daughter. I suppose the main point is she
was beautiful, in the sense that certain cats are beau-
tiful. I rarely heard of my Weybridge friends now,
and never, directly, of Sylvia. My life seemed in-
finitely remote from that of the luxurious Wheeler
menage. When I chanced to earn a few guineas with
my pen outside the littered office of The Mass (where
the bulk of the editorial work fell to me), the money
was almost invariably devoted to the entertainment of
Beatrice. She was in several ways not unlike a kitten,
or something feline, of larger growth: the panther,
for example, in Balzac's thrilling story, " A Passion
in the Desert."
I have never, before or since, met any woman so
totally devoid of the moral sense as Beatrice. Yet
she had a heart that was not bad ; indeed it was a
tender heart. But there was no moral sense to guide
and balance her.
I think of Beatrice as very much a product of that
time. Her own personal enjoyment, pleasure, indul-
gence; these formed alike the centre and the limit
of her thoughts and aims. And the suggestion that
serious thought or energy should be given to any
other end, struck Beatrice as necessarily insincere and
absurd. As for duty, the word had no more real
application to her own life as Beatrice saw it than the
counsels of old-time chivalry for the pursuit of the
Holy Grail.
Soberly considered, this is doubtless very grievous.
108
FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI
But it must be said that if Beatrice was singular in
this, her singularity lay rather in her frank disclosure
of her attitude than in the attitude itself. I am not
sure that morally her absorption in such crude pleas-
ures as she knew, was a whit more culpable than the
equal absorption of nine people out of ten at that
time, in money-getting, in sport, in society functions,
or in sheer idleness. The same oblivion to the sense
of duty was very generally characteristic ; though in
other matters, no doubt, the moral sense was more
active. In Beatrice it simply was not present at all.
All this was tolerably clear to me even then ; but I
will not pretend that it interfered much with the
physical and emotional attraction which Beatrice had
for me. Apart from her my life was very drab in
colour. I had no recreations. In my time at Rugby
and at Cambridge we either practically ignored sport
(so far, at all events, as actual participation in it
went), or lived for it. I had very largely ignored it.
Now, Beatrice Elaine represented, not exactly recrea-
tion, perhaps no, not that I think but gaiety.
The hours I spent in her company were the only
form of gaiety that entered into my life.
My feeling for Beatrice was not serious love, not
at all a grand passion ; but denying myself the occa-
sional pleasure of ministering to her appetite for
little outings would have been a harder task for me
than the acceptation of Sylvia Wheeler's dismissal.
My attentions to Beatrice were very much those of
Balzac's Proven9al to his panther, after he had over-
come his first terrors.
There were times when her acceptance of gifts or
109
THE MESSAGE
compliments from another man made me believe my-
self really in love with Beatrice. Then some pecul-
iarly distasteful aspect of my journalistic work would
be forced upon me; I would receive some striking
illustration of the hopelessly sordid character of
Elaine and his circle, of the policy of The Mass, of
the general trend of my life ; and, seeing Beatrice's
indifferent acceptance of all this venality, I would
turn from her with a certain sense of revulsion for
three days. After that, I would return to handsome
Beatrice, with her feline graces and her warm colour-
ing, as a chilly, tired man turns from his work to his
fireside.
In short, as time went on, I became as indifferent
to ends and aims as the most callous among those at
whose indifference to matters of real moment I had
once girded so vehemently. And I lacked their ex-
cuse. I cut no figure at all in the race for money
and pleasure; unless my clinging to Beatrice be
accounted pursuit of pleasure. Certainly it lacked
the rapt absorption which characterized the multitude
really in the race. I fear I was rapidly degenerating
into a common type of Fleet Street hack ; into noth-
ing more than Clement Elaine's assistant. And then
a quite new influence came into my life.
110
XI
MORNING CALLERS
A woman mixed of such fine elements
That were all virtue and religion dead
She'd make them newly, being what she was.
GEORGE ELIOT.
A SANDY - HAIRED youth-of-all-work, named
Rivers, spent his days in the box we called the
front office; a kind of lobby really, by which one
entered the tolerably large and desperately untidy
room in which Blaine and myself compiled each issue
of The Mass. Blaine spent a good slice of all his
days in keeping appointments, usually in Fleet Street
bars.
My days were spent in the main office of the paper,
among the files, the scissors and paste, the books of
reference, and the three Gargantuan waste-paper
baskets. Here at different times I interviewed men of
every European nationality and every known calling,
besides innumerable followers of no recognized trade
or profession. Among them all I cannot call to mind
more than two or three who, by the most charitable
stretch of imagination, could have been called gentle-
men.
Most of them were obviously, and in all ways seedy,
shady characters furtive, wordy creatures, full of
111
THE MESSAGE
vague, involved grievances. The greater proportion
were foreigners ; scallywags from the mean streets of
every Continental capital ; men familiar with prisons ;
men who talked of the fraternity of labour, and
never did any work ; men full of windy plans for the
enrichment of humanity, who themselves must always
borrow and never repay money, food, shelter, and
the other things for which honest folk give their
labour.
If an English Cabinet Minister had offered us an
explanation of any political development we should
have had small use for his contribution in The Mass,
unless as an advertisement of our importance. For
their teaching, for the text they gave us in our ful-
minations, we greatly preferred the rancorous and
generally scurrilous vapourings of some unknown
alien dumped upon our shores for the relief and bene-
fit of his own country.
We wanted no information from Admiralty Lords
about the Navy, from commanding officers about the
Army, from pro-Consuls about the Colonies, or from
the Foreign Office about foreign relations. But a
deserter or a man dismissed from either of the Serv-
ices, a broker ne'er-do-well rejected as unfit by one
of the Colonies, or a foreign agitator with stories to
tell of Britain's duplicity abroad ; these were all wel-
come fish for our net, and folk whom it was my duty
to receive with respectful attention. From their per-
jured lips it became my mechanical duty to extract
and publish wisdom for the use of our readers in the
guidance of their lives and the exercise of their rights
as citizens and ratepayers. I became adept at the
112
work, and in the end accomplished it daily without
interest, and with only occasional qualms of con-
science. It was my living.
On a sunshiny morning in June, which I remember
very well, the sandy-haired Rivers brought me a visit-
ing-card upon which I read the name of " Miss Con-
stance Grey." In one corner of the card the words
" Cape Town " had been crossed out and a London
address written over them.
I was engaged at the time with a large, pale, fat
man from Stettin, whose mission it was to show me
that the socialist working men of the Fatherland
dearly loved their comrades in England, and that the
paying of taxes for the defence of these islands was a
preposterously absurd thing, for the reason that the
Socialists would never allow Germany to go to war
with England or with any other country. " The
Destroyers," in their truckling to Demos, had al-
ready cut down Naval and Army estimates by more
than one-half since their rise to power, and our
Stettin ambassador was priming me regarding a
demand for further reductions, prior to actual dis-
armament, to provide funds for the fixing of a mini-
mum day's pay and a maximum day's work.
The gentleman from Stettin was to provide us with
material for a special article and a leading article.
His proposals were to be made a " feature." How-
ever, I thought I had gone far enough with him at
this time; and so, looking from his pendulous jowl
to the card in my hand, I told Rivers to ask the lady
to wait for two minutes, and to say that I would see
her then. I remember Herr Mitmann found the occa-
113
THE MESSAGE
sion opportune for the airing of what I suppose he
would have called his sense of humour. His English
and his front teeth were equally badly broken, and
his taste in jokes was almost as swinishly gross as his
appearance. But I was able to be quit of him at
length, and then Rivers ushered in Miss Constance
Grey.
As I rose to provide my visitor with a chair, I
received the impression that she was a young and
quietly well-dressed woman, with a notable pair of
dark eyes. I thought of her as being no more than
five-and-twenty years of age and pleasant to look
upon. But her eyes were the feature that seized one's
attention. They produced an impression of light
and brilliancy, of vigour, intelligence, and charm.
" I called to see you at the office of the Daily
Gazette, Mr. Mordan, and this was the only address
of yours they could give me, or I should have hesi-
tated about intruding on you in working hours. I
bring you an introduction from John Crondall."
And with that she handed me a letter in Crondall's
writing, and nodded in a friendly way when I asked
permission to read it at once.
" Please do," she said.
She had no particular accent, but yet her speech
differed slightly from that of the conventional Eng-
lishwoman of her class the refined and well-edu-
cated Englishwoman, that is. I suppose the difference
was rather one of expression, tone, and choice of
phrase than a matter of accent. I doubt if one could
easily find an example of it nowadays, increased com-
munication having so much broadened our own collo-
114
'RIVERS USHERED IN Miss CONSTANCE GREY"
MORNING CALLERS
quial diction that many of its conventional peculiari-
ties have disappeared. But it existed then, and after
a time I learned to place it as characteristic of the
speech of Greater Britain, as distinguished from the
English of those of us who lived always in this capital
centre of the Empire.
Miss Grey had the Colonial directness and vividness
of speech; a larger, freer diction upon the whole
than that of the Londoner born and bred ; more racy,
less clipped and formal, but, in certain ways, more
correct. The society cliche, and the society fads of
abbreviation and accent, were missing; and in their
place was an easy, idiomatic directness, distinctly
noticeable to a man like myself who had actually
never been out of England. This it was that first
struck me about Miss Grey ; this and the warm bril-
liance of her eyes: a graphic, moving speech, a
frank, compelling gaze ; both indicative, as it seemed
to me, of broadly sympathetic understanding.
I read John Crondall's kindly letter with a good
deal of interest, moved by the fact that his terse,
friendly phrases recalled to me a phase of my own
life which, though no more than a couple of years
past, seemed to me wonderfully remote. I had been
new to London and to Fleet Street then, full of as-
pirations, of earnestness, of independent aims and
hopes; fresh from the University and the more
leisured days of my life as the son of the rector of
Tarn Regis. I had had glimpses of much that was
sordid and squalid in London life, at the period John
Crondall's letter recalled, but as yet there had been no
sordidness in my own life. All that was far other-
115
THE MESSAGE
wise now, I felt. Cambridge and Dorset were a long
way from the office of The Mass. I thought of the
greasy Teuton nondescript for whom I had kept
Miss Grey waiting, and I felt colour rise in my face
as I read John Crondall's letter;
" I expect you have been burgeoning mightily
since I left London, and I should not be surprised
to learn that you have put the Daily Gazette and its
kind definitely behind you. You remember our talks?
Tut, my dear fellow, Liberalism, Conservatism, Radi-
calism it's of not the slightest consequence, and
they're all much of a muchness. The thing is to
stand to one's duty as a citizen of the Empire, not as
a member of this or that little tin coterie ; and if we
stick honourably to that, nothing else matters. You
will like Constance Grey ; that is why I have asked
her to look you up. She's sterling all through ; her
father's daughter to the backbone. And he was the
man of whom Talbot said : ' Give me two Greys, and '
and a couple of other men he mentioned ' and a
free hand, and Whitehall could go to sleep with its
head on South Africa, and never be disturbed
again.' " When Crondall quoted his dead chief, the
man whose personality had dominated British South
Africa, one felt he had said his utmost. " The
principal thing that takes her to London now, I be-
lieve, is detail connected with a special series she has
been engaged upon for The Times; fine stuff, from
what I have seen of it. It is marvellous the grip this
one little bit of a girl has of South African affairs."
" Yes," I thought, now the fact was mentioned,
" I suppose she is small."
116
MORNING CALLERS
" I hope the articles will be well read, for there's a
heap of the vitals of South Africa in them ; and even
if they are to cut us adrift altogether, it's as well
* The Destroyers ' should know a little about us, and
the country. Constance Grey's name and introduc-
tions will take her anywhere in London, or I would
have asked your help in that way."
I thought of Clement Elaine's friends, my own
Fleet Street circle, and shifted uncomfortably in my
chair.
" As it is, the boot may be rather on the other leg,
and she may be of some service to you. But in any
case, I want you to know each other, because you are
a good chap, and will interest her, I know ; and
because she is of the bigger Britain and will interest
you. Things political are, of course, looking pretty
blue for us all, and your particular friends I
rather hope perhaps they're not so much your friends
by now are certainly doing their level best to cut
all moorings. But one must keep pegging aVay.
The more cutting for them, the more splicing for us.
But I do wish we could blindfold Europe until these
' Destroyers ' had got enough rope, and satisfacto-
rily hanged themselves ; for if they go much farther,
their hanging will come too late to save the situation.
Well, salue ! "
I allowed my eyes to linger over the tail-end of the
letter, while I thought. I was sensible of a very real
embarrassment. There seemed a kind of treachery to
John Crondall, a kind of unfairness to Miss Grey, in
my receiving her there at all. By this time one had
no illusions left regarding Clement Blaine and his
117
THE MESSAGE
circle, nor about The Mass. I knew that, at heart,
I was ashamed, and with good reason, of my connec-
tion with both. Still, there I was ; it was my living ;
and I suppose my eyes must have wandered from
the letter. At all events, evidently seeing that I had
finished reading it, my visitor spoke.
" I had an introduction to the editor of the Daily
Gazette, so I took advantage of being there this af-
ternoon to see him. A nice man, I thought, though I
don't care for his paper. He remembered you as
soon as I mentioned your name, and told me you
you were here. He seemed quite sorry you had left
his paper; but I am sure I can understand the at-
traction of a position in which the whole concern is
more or less in one's own hands. Mr. Delaney found
me a copy of The Mass; so I have been studying
you before calling. Perhaps you have inadvertently
done so much by me, through The Times a rather
high and dry old institution, isn't it ? "
Naturally I had punctuated these remarks of hers,
here and there. She had a very bright, alert way in
talking, and now she added, easily, a sentence or two
to the effect that it would be a dull world if we all
held precisely the same views. She did the thing well,
and in a few minutes I found myself chatting away
with her in the most friendly manner. She managed
with the utmost deftness to remove all ground for my
embarrassment regarding my position. She talked
for awhile of South Africa, and the life she had
lived there prior to her father's death ; but she
touched no topic which contained any controversial
118
element. It seemed her aunt, a sister of her father's,
had accompanied her to England, and she said:
" I promised my aunt, Mrs. Van Homrey, that I
would induce you to spare us an evening soon. She
loves meeting friends of John Crondall. We dine at
eight, but would fix any other hour if it suited you
better."
The end of it was I promised to dine with Miss
Grey and her aunt in South Kensington on the follow-
ing evening, and, after a quarter of an hour's very
pleasant chat (twice interrupted by Rivers, who had
people in his cupboard waiting to see me) my visitor
rose to take her departure, with apologies for having
trespassed upon a busy man's time. I told her with
some warmth that the loss of my time was of no
importance, and, with a thought as to the nature of
my petty routine, I repeated the assurance. She
smiled :
" Ah, that's just the masculine insincerity of your
gallantry," she said, " unworn, I see, by working
with women. John Crondall would have sent me
packing."
" No doubt his time is of more value better
occupied."
I had a mental vision of Clement Elaine (who grew
stouter and slacker day by day) sitting drinking with
Herr Mitmann of Stettin, in a favourite bar, within
fifty yards of the office.
" Still the insincerity of politeness," she laughed.
" You forget I have read The Mass. I find you a
terribly earnest partisan; very keenly occupied, I
should say. Till to-morrow evening, then ! "
119
THE MESSAGE
And she was gone, and Rivers was leading in, like
a bear on a cord, a tousled Polish Jew named Kraun-
ski, who was teaching us how the Metropolitan Police
Force should be run, and how tyrannically its wicked
myrmidons oppressed worthy citizens of Houndsditch,
like Mr. Kraunski quite a good Mass feature.
So I stepped back again, feeling as though Con-
stance Grey had carried away the pale London sun-
light with her when she left my littered den.
120
XII
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
" Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."
DAVID GARRICK.
I REMEMBER that the evening of the day fol-
lowing my dinner engagement with Miss Grey
and her aunt was consecrate, by previous arrange-
ment, to Beatrice Blaine. I had received seven
guineas a couple of days before for a rather silly
and sensational descriptive article, the subject of
which had been suggested by Beatrice. Indeed, she
had made me write it, and liked the thing when it
appeared in print. It described certain aspects of
the quarter of London which stood for pleasure in
her eyes ; the quarter bounded by Charing Cross and
Oxford Street, Leicester Square and Hyde Park
Corner.
I think I would gladly have escaped the evening
with Beatrice if I could have done so fairly. Seeing
that I could not do this, and that my mood seemed
chilly, I plunged with more than usual extravagance,
and sought to work up all the gaiety I could. I had
a vague feeling that I owed so much to Beatrice;
that the occasion in some way marked a crisis in our
relations. I did not mentally call it a last extrava-
THE MESSAGE
gance, but yet I fancy that must have been the notion
at the back of my mind ; from which one may assume,
I think, that Constance Grey had already begun to
exercise some influence over me.
With the seven guineas clinking in the pockets of
my evening clothes here, at all events, was a link
with University days, for these seldom-worn garments
bore the name of a Cambridge tailor I drove to
the corner of the road beside Battersea Park in which
the Blaines lived, and there picked up Beatrice, in
all her vivid finery, by appointment. She loved
bright colours and daring devices in dress. That I
should come in a cab to fetch her was an integral
part of her pleasure, and, if funds could possibly be
stretched to permit it, she liked to retain the services
of the same cab until I brought her back to her own
door.
We drove to a famous showy restaurant close to
Piccadilly Circus, where Beatrice accomplished the
kind of entrance which delighted her heart, with at-
tendants fluttering about her, and a messenger post-
ing back to the cab for a forgotten fan, and a deal
of bustle and rustle of one sort and another. A quar-
ter of an hour was devoted to the choice of a menu
in a dining-room which resembled the more ornate
type of music-hall, and was of about the same size.
The flashing garishness of it all delighted Beatrice,
and the heat of its atmosphere suited both her mood
and her extremely decollete toilette.
I remember beginning to speak of my previous eve-
ning's engagement while Beatrice sipped the rather
sticky champagne, which was the first item of the
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
meal to reach us. But a certain sense of unfitness or
disinclination stopped me after a few sentences, and
I did not again refer to my new friends ; though I
had been thinking a good deal of Constance Grey
and her plain-faced, plain-spoken aunt. I felt
strangely out of key with my environment in that
glaring place, and the strains of an overloud orches-
tra, when they came crashing through the buzz of
talk and laughter, and the clatter of glass and silver,
were rather a relief to me as a substitute for conver-
sation. I drank a great deal of champagne, and re-
sented the fact that it seemed to have no stimulating
effect upon me. But Beatrice was in a purring stage
of contentment, her colour high, her passionate eyes
sparkling, and low laughter ever atremble behind her
full, red lips.
After the dinner we drove to another place exactly
like the restaurant, all gilding and crimson plush,
and there watched a performance, which for dulness
and banality it would be difficult to equal anywhere.
It was more silly than a peep-show at a country fair,
but it was all set in a most gorgeous and costly frame.
The man who did crude and ancient conjuring tricks
was elaborately finely dressed, and attended by mon-
strous footmen in liveries of Oriental splendour.
What he did was absurdly tame; the things he did
it with, his accessories, were barbarously gorgeous.
This was not one of the great " Middle Class
Halls," as they were called during their first year of
existence, but an old-established haunt of those who
aimed at " seeing life " a great resort of am-
bitious young bloods about town. Not very long
THE MESSAGE
before this time, a powerful trust had been formed
to confer the stuffy and inane delights of the " Hall "
upon that sturdily respectable suburban middle class
the backbone of London society which had
hitherto, to a great extent, eschewed this particular
form of dissipation. The trust amassed wealth by
striking a shrewd blow at our national character. Its
entertainments were to be all refinement " fun with-
out vulgarity " ; the oily announcements were nau-
seating. But they answered their purpose only too
well. The great and still religious bourgeois class
was securely hooked ; and then the name of " Middle
Class Halls " was dropped, and the programme pro-
vided in these garish palaces became simply an inex-
pensive and rather amateurish imitation of those of
the older halls, plus a kind of prudish, sentimental,
and even quasi-religious lubricity, which made them
altogether revolting, and infinitely deleterious.
But our choice upon this occasion had fallen upon
the most famous of the old halls. Of the perform-
ance I remember a topical song which evoked enthu-
siastic applause. It was an incredibly stupid piece
of doggerel about England's position in the world;
and the shiny-faced exquisite who declaimed it
strutted to and fro like a bantam cock at each fresh
roar of applause from the heated house. When he
used the word " fight " he waved an imaginary sword
and assumed a ridiculous posture, which he evidently
connected with warlike exercises of some kind. The
song praised the Government "A Government er
business men ; men that's got sense " and told how
this wonderful Government had stopped the pouring
124
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
out of poor folks' money upon flag-waving, to devote
it to poor folks' needs. It alluded to the title that
Administration had earned : " The Destroyers " ;
and acclaimed it a proud title, because it meant the
destruction of " gold-laced bunkcombe," and of
" vampires that were preying on the British working
man."
But the chorus was the thing, and the perspiring
singer played conductor with all the airs and graces
of a spangled showman in a booth, while the huge
audience yelled itself hoarse over this. I can only
recall two lines of it, and these were to the effect that :
" They " meaning the other Powers of civilization
" will never go for England, because England's
got the dibs."
It was rather a startling spectacle ; that vast audi-
torium, in which one saw countless flushed faces, tier
on tier, gleaming through a haze of tobacco smoke;
their mouths agape as they roared out the vapid lines
of this song. I remember thinking that the doggerel
might have been the creation of my fat contributor
from Stettin, Herr Mitmann, and that if the music-
hall public had reached this stage, I must have been
oversensitive in my somewhat hostile and critical atti-
tude toward the writings of that ponderous Teuton.
I thought that for once The Mass would almost lag
behind its readers ; though in the beginning I had
regarded Herr Mitmann's proposals as going beyond
even our limits.
We left the hall while its roof echoed the jingling
tail-piece of another popular ditty, which tickled
Beatrice's fancy hugely. In it the singer expressed,
125
THE MESSAGE
without exaggeration and without flattery, a good
deal of the popular London attitude toward the pur-
suit of pleasure and the love of pleasure resorts. I
recall phrases like : " Give my regards to Leicester
Square Greet the girls in Regent Street Tell
them in Bond Street we'll soon meet " and, " Give
them my love in the Strand."
The atmosphere reeked now of spirits, smoke, and
overheated humanity. The voice of the great audi-
ence was hoarse and rather bestial in suggestion.
The unescorted women began to make their invita-
tions dreadfully pressing. Doubtless my mood col-
oured the whole tawdry business, but I remember
finding those last few minutes distinctly revolting,
and experiencing a genuine relief when we stepped
into the outer air.
But the lights were just as brilliant outside, the
pavements as thronged as the carpeted promenade,
its faces almost as thickly painted as those of the
lady who wished her " regards " given to Leicester
Square, or the gentleman who had assured us that
nobody wanted to fight England, because England
had the dibs."
Beatrice was now in feverishly high spirits. She
no longer purred contentment; rather it seemed to
me she panted in avid excitement, while pouring out
a running fire of comment upon the dress and appear-
ance of passers-by, as we drove to another palace of
gilt and plush a sort of magnified Pullman car,
with decorations that made one's eyes ache. Here
we partook of quite a complicated champagne sup-
per. I dare say fifty pounds was spent in that room
126
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
after the gorgeously uniformed attendants had begun
their chant of " Time, gentlemen, please ; time ! "
which signified that the closing hour had arrived.
Beatrice kept up her excitement or perhaps the
champagne did this for her until our cab was half-
way across Chelsea Bridge. Then she lay back in her
corner, and, I suppose, began to feel the grayness of
the as yet unseen dawn of a new day. But as I
helped her out of the cab in Battersea, she said she
had thoroughly enjoyed her "fluffy" evening, and
thanked me very prettily. I returned in the cab as
far as Westminster, and there dismissed the man with
the last of my seven guineas, having decided to walk
from there to my Bloomsbury lodging.
For a Socialist, my conduct was certainly peculiar.
There were two of us. We had had two meals, one
of which was as totally unnecessary as the other was
overelaborate. And we had spent an hour or two in
watching an incredibly stupid and vulgar perform-
ance. And over this I had spent a sum upon which
an entire family could have been kept going for a
couple of months. But there were scores of people
in London that night some of them passed me in
cabs and carriages, as I walked from the Abbey
toward Fleet Street who had been through a simi-
lar programme and spent twice as much over it as
I had. It was an extraordinarily extravagant period ;
and it seemed that the less folk did in the discharge
of their national obligations as citizens, the more
they demanded, and the more they spent, in the name
of pleasure.
The people who passed me, as I made my way east-
127
THE MESSAGE
ward, were mostly in evening dress, pale and raffish-
looking. Many, particularly among the couples in
hansoms, were intoxicated, and making a painful
muddle of such melodies as those we had listened to
at the music hall. Overeaten, overdrunken, over-
excited, overextravagant, in all ways figures of in-
continence, these noisy Londoners made their way
homeward, pursued by the advancing gray light of
a Sabbath dawn in midsummer.
And Beatrice loved everything foreign, because
the foreigners had none of our stupid British Puri-
tanism ! And the British public was mightily pleased
with its Government, " The Destroyers," because
they were cutting down to vanishing point expendi-
ture upon such superfluous vanities as national de-
fence, in order to devote the money to improving
the conditions in which the public lived, and to the
reducing of their heavy burdens as citizens of a great
Empire. Money could not possibly be spared for
such ornamentation as ships and guns and bodies of
trained men. We could not afford it!
As I passed the corner of Agar Street a drunken
cabdriver, driving two noisily intoxicated men in
evening dress, brought his cab into collision with a
gaunt, wolf-eyed man who had been scouring the
gutter for scraps of food. He was one of an army
prowling London's gutters at that moment: human
wolves, questing for scraps of refuse meat. The
space between each prowler was no more than a few
yards. This particular wretch was knocked down
by the cab, but not hurt. Cabby and his fares roared
out drunken laughter. The horse was never checked.
128
But in the midst of their laughter one of the passen-
gers threw out a coin, upon which the human wolf
pounced like a bird of prey. I saw the glint of the
coin. It was a sovereign ; very likely the twentieth
those men had spent that night. For that sum, four
hundred of the gaunt, gutter-prowling wolves might
have been fed and sheltered.
Entering Holborn I ran against a man I knew,
named Wardle, one of the sub-editors of a Sunday
newspaper, then on his way home from Fleet Street.
Wardle was tired and sleepy, but stopped to ex-
change a few words of journalistic gossip.
" Rather sickening about the wind-up of the East
Anglian Pageant," he said, " isn't it? Did you hear
of it?"
I explained that I had not been in Fleet Street that
night, and had heard nothing.
" Why, there was to be no end of a tumashi for the
Saturday evening wind-up, you know, and we were
featuring it. We sent a special man up yesterday to
help the local fellow. Well, just as we'd got in
about a couple of hundred words of his introductory
stuff, word came through that the wires were inter-
rupted, and not another blessed line did we get. I
tell you there was some tall cursing done, and some
flying around in the editorial ' fill-up ' drawers. We
were giving it first place three columns. One
blessing, we found the stoppage was general. No
one else has got a line of East Anglian stuff to-night.
Ours was the last word from the submerged city of
Ipswich. But it really is rather an odd breakdown.
No sign of rough weather ; and, mind you there are
129
a number of different lines of communication. But
they're all blocked, telegraph and telephone. Our
chief tried to get through via the Continent, just to
give us something to go on. But it was no go. Odd,
isn't it?"
" Very," I agreed, as we turned ; and I added,
rather inanely : " One hears a lot about East An-
glian coast erosion."
Wardle yawned and grinned.
" Yes, to be sure. Perhaps East Anglia is cruis-
ing down Channel by now. Or perhaps the Kaiser's
landed an army corps and taken possession. That
Mediterranean business on Tuesday was pretty pro-
nounced cheek, you know, and, by all accounts, the
result of direct orders from Potsdam. Only the
Kaiser's bluff, I suppose, but I'm told it's taken most
of the Channel Fleet down into Spanish waters."
I smiled at the activity of Wardle's journalistic
imagination, and thought of the music-hall crowd.
" Ah, well," I said, " They'll never go for Eng-
land, because England's got the dibs ' ! "
" What ho ! " remarked Wardle, with another
yawn. And this time he was really off.
And so I walked home alone to my lodgings, and
climbed into bed, thinking vaguely of Constance
Grey, and what she would have thought of my night's
work ; this, as the long, palely glinting arms of the
Sabbath dawn thrust aside the mantle of summer
night from Bloomsbury.
130
XIII
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
Winds of the World give answer ! They are whimpering
to and fro
And what should they know of England who only Eng-
land know ?
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume
and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the
English flag. RDDYARD KIPLING.
AS was usually the case on the day following one
of Beatrice's " fluffy " evenings, I descended
to my never very tempting lodging-house breakfast
on that Sunday morning feeling the reverse of cheer-
ful, and much inclined to take the gloomiest view of
everything life had to offer me.
Sunday was generally a melancholy day for me.
It was my only day out of Fleet Street, and, though
I had long since taken such steps as I thought I
could afford toward transforming my bedroom into
a sitting-room, there was nothing very comfortable
or homelike about it. I had dropped the habit of
churchgoing after the first few months of my Lon-
don life, without any particular thought or intention,
but rather, I think, as one kind of reflex action a
subconscious reflection of the views and habits of
those among whom I lived and worked.
131
THE MESSAGE
Hearing a newsboy crying a " special " edition of
some paper, I threw up the window and bought a
copy, across the area railings. It was the paper for
which Wardle worked. I found in it no particular
justification for any special issue, and, as a fact, the
probability is the appearance of this edition was
merely a device to increase circulation, suggested
mainly by the fact that the ordinary issue had been
delayed by the East Anglian telegraphic breakdown.
Regarding this, I found the following item of edito-
rial commentary:
" As is explained elsewhere, a serious breakdown
of telegraphic communication has occurred between
London and Harwich, Ipswich and East Anglia gen-
erally, as a result of which our readers are robbed
of special despatches regarding last night's conclu-
sion of the East Anglian Pageant. It is thought
that the breakdown is due to some electrical disturb-
ance of the atmosphere resulting in a fusion of
wires.
" But as an example of the ridiculous lengths to
which the national defence cranks will go in their
hatching of alarmist reports, a rumour was actually
spread in Fleet Street at an early hour this morning
that this commonplace accident to the telegraph wires
was caused by an invading German army. This
ridiculous canard is reminiscent of some of the foolish
scares which frightened our forefathers a little more
than a century ago, when the Corsican terrorized
Europe. But our rumour-mongers are too far out
of date for this age. It is unfortunate that the ad-
vocates of militarism should receive parliamentary
132
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
support of any kind. The Opposition is weakly and
insignificant enough in all conscience, without court-
ing further unpopularity by floating British public
feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks
among its following to bring ridicule upon the coun-
try-
" The absurd canard to which we have referred is
maliciously ill-timed. It will doubtless be reported
on the Continent, and may injure us there. But we
trust our friends in Germany will do us the justice
of recognizing at once that this is merely the work
of an irresponsible and totally unrepresentative
clique, and in no sort a reflection of any aspect of
public feeling in this country. We are able to state
with certainty that last Tuesday's regrettable inci-
dent in the Mediterranean has been satisfactorily and
definitely closed. Admiral Blennerhaustein displayed
characteristic German courtesy and generosity in his
frank acceptance of the apology sent to him from
Whitehall; and the report that our Channel Fleet
had entered the Straits of Gibraltar is incorrect. A
portion of the Channel Fleet had been cruising off
the coast of the Peninsula, and is now on its way back
to home waters. Our relations with His Imperial
Majesty's Government in Berlin were never more
harmonious, and such a canard as this morning's
rumour of invasion is only worthy of mention for the
sake of a demonstration of its complete absurdity.
If, as was stated, the author of this puerile inven-
tion is a Navy League supporter, who reached Lon-
don in a motor-car from Harwich soon after daylight
this morning, our advice to him is to devote the rest
133
THE MESSAGE
of the day to sleeping off the effects of an injudicious
evening in East Anglia."
Failing the East Anglian Pageant, the paper's
" first feature," I noticed, consisted of a lot of gen-
erously headed particulars regarding the big Dis-
armament Demonstration to be held in Hyde Park
that afternoon. It seemed that this was to be a
really big thing, and I decided to attend in the inter-
ests of The Mass. The President of the Local Gov-
ernment Board and three well-known members on the
Government side of the House were to speak. The
Demonstration had been organized by the National
Peace Association for Disarmament and Social Re-
form, of which the Prime Minister had lately been
elected President. Delegates, both German and Eng-
lish, of the Anglo-German Union had promised to
deliver addresses. Among other well-known bodies
who were sending representatives I saw mention of
the Anti-Imperial and Free Tariff Society, the Inde-
pendent English Guild, the Home Rule Association,
the Free Trade League, and various Republican and
Socialist bodies. The paper said some amusement
was anticipated from a suggested counter demonstra-
tion proposed by a few Navy League enthusiasts;
but that the police would take good care that no
serious interruptions were allowed.
As the Demonstration was fixed for three o'clock
in the afternoon, I decided to go up the river by
steamboat to Kew after my late breakfast. It was a
gloriously fine morning, and on the river I began to
feel a little more cheerful. As we passed Battersea
Park I thought of Beatrice, who always suffered
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
from severe depressions after her little outings. Her
spirits were affected; in my case, restaurant food,
inferior wine, and the breathing of vitiated air was
paid for by nothing worse than a headache and a
morning's discomfort.
(One of the curses of the time, which seemed to
grow more acute as the habit of extravagance and
the thirst for pleasure increased, was the outrageous
adulteration of all food-stuffs, and more particularly
of all alcoholic liquors, which prevailed not alone in
the West End of London, but in every city. Home
products could only be obtained in clubs and in the
houses of the rich. Their quantity was insufficient
to admit of their reaching the open markets. In the
cities we lived entirely upon foreign products, and
their adulteration had reached a most amazing limit
of badness.)
My thought of Beatrice was brief that morning,
but I continued during most of my little excursion
to dwell upon my new friends in South Kensington.
I wondered how Constance Grey spent Sunday in
London, and whether the confinement of the town
oppressed her after the spacious freedom of the
South African life she had described to me. I re-
membered that I had promised to call upon her and
her aunt very soon, and wandered whether that after-
noon, after the Demonstration, would be too soon.
I mentally decided that it would, but that I would
go all the same.
And then, suddenly, as the steamer passed under
Hammersmith Bridge, a thought went through me
like cold steel:
135
THE MESSAGE
" She will very soon return to that freer, wider
life out there in South Africa."
How I hated the place. South Africa ! I had
always associated it with Imperialism, militarism
" empireism," as I called it in my own mind : the
strange, outside interests, which one regarded as
opposing home interests, social reform, and the like.
Though I did not know that any political party con-
siderations influenced me one atom, I was in reality,
like nearly every one else at that time, mentally the
slave and creature of party feeling, party tradition,
party prejudice. But now I had a new cause for
hating those remote uplands of Empire, those out-
side places.
Sitting under a tree in Kew Gardens, I had leisure
in which to browse over the matter, and, upon reflec-
tion, I was astonished that this sudden thought of
mine should have struck so shrewdly, so violently,
into my peace of mind. I tried to neutralize its effect
by reminding myself that I had met Constance Grey
only twice; that she was in many ways outside my
purview; that she was the intimate friend of people
who had helped to make history, the special contrib-
utor to the Times, with her introductions to ex-Cab-
inet Ministers in England and her other relations
with great people; that such a woman could never
play an intimate part in my life. Her friendliness
could not be the prelude to friendship with the assist-
ant editor of The Mass; it probably meant no more
than a courteous deference to John Crondall's whim,
I told myself. But I would call at the South Ken-
sington flat, certainly ; it would be boorish to refrain,
136
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
and there was no denying I should have been
mightily perturbed if any valid reason had appeared
against my going to see Constance Grey after doing
my duty by the Demonstration.
The newsboys were putting a good deal of feel-
ing into their crying of special editions when I
reached the streets again ; but I was not inclined
to waste further pence upon the Sunday News' mor-
alizings over the evolution of canards. I took a mess
of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant
in Netting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Blooms-
bury before the Demonstration. The waiter either
a Swiss or a German asked me:
" Vad you sink, sare, of ze news from ze coun-
try?"
I asked him what it was, and he handed me a fresh
copy of the Sunday News, headed : " Special Edi-
tion. Noon."
" By Jove ! " I thought ; " no Sunday dinner for
Wardle! They couldn't have printed this in the
small hours."
But the only new matter in this issue was a short
announcement, headed in poster type, as follows:
"EAST ANGLIA'S ISOLATION
RAILWAY COMMUNICATION STOPPED
STRANGE SUPPORT OF INVASION CANARD
IS THIS A TORY HOAX?
(SPECIAL)
The preposterous rumour of a German invasion of
England is receiving mysterious support. We hear
from a reliable source that some Imperialist and Navy
137
THE MESSAGE
League cranks have organized a gigantic hoax by
way of opposition to the Disarmament Demonstra-
tion. If the curious breakdown of communication
with the east coast does prove to be the work of
political fanatics, we think, and hope, that these
gentry may shortly be convinced, in a manner they
are never likely to forget, that, even in this land of
liberty, the crank is not allowed to interfere with the
transaction of public business.
" No trains have reached Liverpool Street from the
northeast this morning, and communication cannot
be established beyond Chelmsford. Whatever the
cause of this singular breakdown may be, our read-
ers will soon know it, for, in order finally to dispel
any hint of credence which may be attached in some
quarters to the absurd invasion report, we have al-
ready despatched two representatives in two powerful
motor-cars, northeastward from Brentwood, with in-
structions to return to that point and telegraph full
particulars directly they can discover the cause of
the stoppage of communication.
" Further special editions will be issued when news
is received from East Anglia."
" Yes," I said to the waiter ; " it's a curious af-
fair."
" You believe him, sare zat Shermany do it? "
"Eh? No; certainly not. Do you? "
" Me ? Oh, sare, I don' know nozzing. Vaire
shstrong, sare, ze Sherman Armay."
The fellow's face annoyed me in some way. It,
and his grins and gesticulations, had a sinister seem-
ing. My trade brought me into contact with so
138
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
many low-class aliens. I told myself I was getting
insular and prejudiced, and resumed my meal with
more thought for myself and my tendencies and af-
fairs than for the East Anglian business. I have
wondered since what the waiter thought about while
I ate; whether he thought of England, Germany,
and of myself, as representing the British citizen.
But, to be sure, for aught I know, his thoughts may
have been ordered for him from Berlin.
The Demonstration drew an enormous concourse
of people to Hyde Park. The weather being perfect,
a number of people made an outing of the occasion,
and one saw whole groups of people who clearly
came from beyond Whitechapel, the Borough, Shep-
herd's Bush, and Islington. As had been anticipated,
a few well-dressed people endeavoured to run a coun-
ter-demonstration under a Navy League banner ; but
their following was absurdly small, and the crowd
gave them nothing but ridicule and contempt.
The President of the Local Government Board
received a tremendous ovation. For some minutes
after his first appearance that enormous crowd sang,
" He's a jolly good fellow! " with great enthusiasm.
Then, when this member of the Government at last
succeeded in getting as far as : " Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen," some one started the song
with the chorus containing the words : " They'll
never go for England, because England's got the
dibs." This spread like a line of fire in dry grass,
and in a moment the vast crowd was rocking to the
jingling rhythm of the song, the summer air quiver-
ing to the volume of its thousand-throated voice.
139
THE MESSAGE
The President of the Local Government Board had
been rather suspected of tuft-hunting recently, and
his appearance in the stump orator's role, and in the
cause of disarmament, was wonderfully popular. In
his long career as Labour agitator, Socialist, and
Radical, he had learned to know the popular pulse
remarkably well; and now he responded cleverly to
the call of the moment. His vein was that of the
heavy, broad bludgeoning sarcasm which tickles a
crowd, and his theme was not the wickedness, but the
stupidity and futility of all " Jingoism," " spread-
eagleism," " tall-talk," and " gold-lace bunk-
combe."
" I am told my honourable friends of the opposi-
tion," he said, with an ironical bow in the direction of
the now folded Navy League banner, " have played
some kind of a practical joke in the eastern coun-
ties to-day. Well, children will be children; but I
am afraid there will have to be spankings if half that
I hear is true. They have tried to frighten you into
abandoning this Demonstration with a pretended in-
vasion of England. Well, my friends, it does not
look to me as though their invasion had affected this
Demonstration very seriously. I seem to fancy I see
quite a number of people gathered together here.
(It is estimated that over sixty thousand people were
trying to hear his words.) But all I have to say on
this invasion question is just this: If our friends
from Germany have invaded East Anglia, let us be
grateful for their enterprise, and, as a nation of
shopkeepers should, let us make as much as we can
out of 'em. But don't let us forget our hospitality.
140
THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK
If our neighbours have dropped in in a friendly way,
why, let's be sure we've something hot for supper.
Perhaps a few sausages wouldn't be taken amiss.
(The laughter and applause was so continuous here
that for some moments nothing further could be
heard.) No, my friends, this invasion hoax should
now be placed finally upon the retired list. It has
been on active service now since the year 1800, and
I really think it's time our spread-eagle friends gave
us a change. Let me for one moment address you in
my official capacity, as your servant and a member
of the Government. This England of ours is about
as much in danger of being invaded as I am of be-
coming a millionaire, and those of you "
The speaker's next words never reached me, being
drowned by a great roar of laughter and applause.
Just then I turned round to remonstrate with a man
who was supporting himself upon my right shoulder.
I was on the edge of the one narrow part of the
crowd, against some iron railings. As I turned I
noticed a number of boys tearing along in fan-shaped
formation, and racing toward the crowd from the
direction of Marble Arch. My eyes followed the
approaching boys, and I forgot the fellow who had
been plaguing me. The lads were all carrying bun-
dles of papers, and now, as they drew nearer, I could
see and hear that they were yelling as they ran.
" Another special edition," I thought. " No sort
of a Sunday for poor Wardle."
The President of the Local Government Board had
resumed his speech, and I could hear his clean-cut
words distinctly. He had a good incisive delivery.
141
THE MESSAGE
Across his words now the hoarse yell of an approach-
ing newsboy smote upon my ears :
" Extry speshul ! Sixpence ! German Army Corps
in England! Speshul! Invashen er Sufferk! Spe-
shul sixpence ! German Army Corps sixpence !
Invashen ! "
" By Jove ! " I thought. " That's rough on our
disarmament feature from Herr Mitmann ! "
I very well remember that that precisely was my
thought.
142
XIV
THE NEWS
He could not hear Death's rattle at the door,
He was so busy with his sottishness. TURNER.
THE chance of my position on the edge of the
crowd nearest to Marble Arch caused me to be
among those who secured a paper, and at the compar-
atively modest price of sixpence. Two minutes later,
I saw a member of the committee of the Demonstra-
tion hand over half-a-crown for one of the same
limp sheets, all warm and smeary from the press.
And in two more minutes the newsboys (there must
have been fifty of them) were racing back to Marble
Arch, feverishly questing further supplies, and, I
suppose, reckoning as they ran their unaccustomed
gains.
The news, mostly in poster type, was only a matter
of a few lines of comment, and a few more lines of
telegraphic despatch from Brentwood:
" Telegraphic communication with Chelmsford has
now been cut off, but one of our special representa-
tives, who succeeded in obtaining a powerful six-
cylinder motor-car, has reached Brentwood, after a
racing tour to the northeastward. We publish his
despatch under all possible reserve. He is a journal-
ist of high repute, but we venture to say with confi-
143
THE MESSAGE
dence that he has evidently been imposed upon by the
promoters of the most abominably wicked hoax and
fraud ever perpetrated by criminal fanatics upon a
trusting public. We have very little doubt that a
number of these rabid advocates of that spirit of
militarism to which the British public will never for
one moment submit, will be cooling their heated brains
in prison cells before the night is out."
And then followed the despatch from Brentwood,
which said:
" Roads, railways, communication of all kinds ab-
solutely blocked. Coastal regions of Suffolk and
South Norfolk, and possibly Essex, are occupied by
German soldiers. A cyclist from near Harwich says
the landing was effected last evening, the most elab-
orate preparations and arrangements having been
made beforehand. My car was fired at near Colches-
ter. Chelmsford is now occupied by German cavalry,
cyclist and motor corps. Have not heard of any loss
of life, but whole country is panic-stricken. Cannot
send further news. Telegraph office closed to public,
being occupied in official business."
That was all. As my eyes rose from the blurred
surface of the news-sheet the picture of the crowd
absorbed me, like a stage-spectacle. There were from
forty to sixty thousand people assembled, of all ages
and classes. Among them were perhaps one thou-
sand, perhaps two thousand, copies of the newspaper.
Some ten thousand people were craning necks and
straining eyes to read those papers. The rest were
making short, hoarse, frequently meaningless ejacu-
lations.
144
THE NEWS
I saw one middle-aged man, who might have been
a grocer, and a deacon in his place of worship, fold
up his paper after reading it and thrust it, for future
reference, in the tail-pocket of his sombre Sunday
coat. But his neighbours in the crowd would not
have that. A number of outstretched hands sud-
denly surrounded him. I saw his face pale. "Give
us a look ! " was all the sense I grasped from a score
of exclamations. The grocer's paper was in frag-
ments on the grass ten seconds later, and its destroy-
ers were reaching out in other directions.
" It's abominable," I heard the grocer muttering
to himself; and his hands shook as though he had
the palsy.
But in other cases the papers passed whole from
hand to hand, and their holders read the news aloud.
I think the entire crowd had grasped the gist of it
inside of four minutes ; and their exclamatory com-
ments were extraordinary, grotesque.
" My God ! " and " My Gawd ! " reached my ears
frequently. But they were less representative than
were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and stac-
cato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hyster-
ical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one
heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such
sentences as : "I sye ; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges ? "
"'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business;
perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser?
Not arf ! " " Anything to sell the papers, you
know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!"
" Johnny get yer gun, get yer gun ! " " Some one
must be punished for this. Might have caused a
145
THE MESSAGE
panic, you know." " True ? Good Lord, no ! What
would our Navy be doing? " " Well, upon my word,
I don't know." " Nice business for the fish trade ! "
" Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to
their Aunt Rebecca's." " Wot price Piccadilly an'
Regent Street to-night ? " " Come along, my dear ;
let's get home out of this." " Absolute bosh, my dear
boy, from beginning to end doing business with
'em every day o' my life ! " And then a hoarse snatch
of song : " ' They'll never go for England ' not
they ! What ho ! ' Because England's got the
dibs!'"
Suddenly then, above and across the thousand-
voiced small talk, came the trained notes of the voice
of the President of the Local Government Board.
" My friends, the whole story is a most transpar-
ent fraud. It's a shameful hoax. I tell you the thing
is physically and morally impossible. It couldn't
have been done in the time ; and it is all a lie, anyhow.
I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our
chairman for "
The crowd had listened attentively enough to the
old agitator's comment on the news. They liked his
assurances on that point. But they were in no mood
for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling
across the grass toward Marble Arch and down to
Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's further words
were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause,
cheers, laughter, shouts of " Are we downhearted ? "
raucous answers in the negative, and cries of " Never
mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good
fellow!"
146
THE NEWS
In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to
have been stripped naked, and the few vehicles, tables,
and little platforms which had formed the centre of
the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree
suddenly bereft of foliage, looking curiously small
and bare. I am told that restaurants and refresh-
ment places did an enormous trade during the next
few hours. When the public-houses opened they
were besieged, and, in many cases, closed again after
a few hours, sold out.
For my part, I made at once, and without think-
ing, for Constance Grey's flat in South Kensington.
The crowds in the streets were not only much larger,
but in many ways different from the usual run of
Sunday crowds. The people wore their Sunday
clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday manners and
air. There was more of a suggestion of Saturday
night in the streets ; the suggestion that a tremen-
dous number of people were going to enjoy a
" spree " of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, com-
bined with a general desire for cigars, drinks, sing-
ing, and gaiety, seemed to be ruling the people.
At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band
was blaring out the air of " The Holy City," and
people stood about in groups laughing and chatting
noisily. The newspaper boys had some competitors
now, and the Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was
added to by a number of lads and girls who had ap-
peared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless com-
modities for sale, such as peacocks' feathers, paper
fans, and streamers of coloured paper.
Why these things should have been wanted I can-
147
THE MESSAGE
not say; but their sellers knew their business very
well. The demand was remarkably brisk. Indeed,
I noticed one of three young men, who walked
abreast, purchase quite a bunch of the long feathers,
only to drop them beside the curb a few moments
later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them,
and sold them again. I suppose that by this time
the vast majority of the people had no doubt what-
ever about the news being a monstrous hoax ; but
there was no blinking the fact that the public had
been strongly moved.
It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned
from a servant that Miss Grey was at home had
just come in, as a matter of fact. It was as though
I had some important business to transact with this
girl from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes,
and alert, thoughtful expression. I felt that it would
have been serious if she should have been away, if I
had missed her. It was not until I heard her step
outside the door of the little drawing-room into
which I had been shown, that I suddenly became con-
scious that I had no business whatever with Constance
Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty-
eight hours of my dining there, might perhaps be
adjudged a piece of questionable taste.
A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the
matter at all, I should have known that Constance
Grey wasted no time over any such petty considera-
tions. She entered to me with a set, grave face, tak-
ing my hand mechanically, as though too much pre-
. occupied for such ceremonies.
" What do you think of the news ? " she said, with-
148
THE NEWS
out a word of preliminary greeting. I felt more
than a little abashed at this; for, truth to tell, I
really had given no serious thought to the news. I
had observed its reception by the public as a specta-
tor might. But, in the first place, I had been early
warned that it was all a hoax ; and then, too, like so
many of my contemporaries, I was without the citi-
zen feeling altogether, so far as national interests
were concerned. I had grown to regard citizenship
as exclusively a matter of domestic politics and social
progress, municipal affairs, and the like. I never
gave any thought to our position as a people and a
nation in relation to foreign Powers.
" Oh, well," I said, " it's an extraordinary busi-
ness, isn't it? I have just come from the Demon-
stration in Hyde Park. It was practically squashed
by the arrival of the special editions. The people
seemed pretty considerably muddled about it, so I
suppose those who arranged it all may be said to
have scored their point."
" So you don't believe it? "
" Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a
gigantic hoax, is it not? "
" But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how how wonder-
ful English people are! You, your own self; what
do you think about it? But forgive me for heckling.
Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the
study? Aunt is in there."
We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room,
with low wicker chairs, and a big, littered writing-
table.
149
THE MESSAGE
" Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance
Grey, when I had shaken hands with her aunt.
" Doesn't he? " said that strong, plain-spoken
woman. " Well, I fancy there are a good many
more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their
eyes opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow."
" Then you take the whole thing seriously ? " I
asked them.
Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in
the presence of these women, and were racing over
everything that I had seen and heard that day, from
the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise,
in Holborn.
" I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs.
Van Homrey, with laconic emphasis. "Do you?"
she added.
" Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your
view. My first word of it was just before dawn this
morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and,
somehow well, you know, the general idea seems
to be that the whole thing is an elaborate joke worked
up by the Navy League, or somebody, as a counter-
stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration to teach
us a lesson, and all that, you know."
I had to remind myself that I was addressing two
ladies who were sure to be whole-hearted supporters
of the Navy League and all other Imperialist organi-
zations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be apprais-
ing me. I fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were
looking right into me with grave criticism, and dis-
covering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the
thought. I should have been more distressed had not
150
THE NEWS
a vague, futile anger crept into my mind. After all,
I thought, what right had this girl from South
Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew Eng-
land better than she did. I was a journalist of expe-
rience. Bah! My twopenny thoughts drooped and
fainted as they rose.
" But perhaps you are better informed? " I said,
weakly. " Perhaps you have other information? "
Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I
recall her gaze now, it was almost maternal in its
yearning gravity.
" I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she
said. " What cuts me to the heart is the fear that
it may have come too late."
Never have I heard such gravity in a young
woman's voice. Her words overpowered me almost
by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them.
They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a
fount of inspiration.
" We haven't any special information," said Mrs.
Van Homrey. " We have only read, like every one
else, that East Anglia is occupied by German sol-
diers, landed last night; that the East Anglian
Pageant has been made the cloak of most elaborate
preparations for weeks past ; that the Mediterranean
incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw
the Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dread-
ful business has succeeded so far, like like perfect
machinery ; like the thing it is : the outcome of per-
fect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We
have heard no more; but the only hoaxing that I
can see is done by the purblind people who have
151
THE MESSAGE
made the public think it a hoax and that is not
conscious hoaxing, of course; they are too bemud-
dled with their disarmament farce for that."
" More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid,"
said Constance Grey. And then, turning to me, she
said : " We lunched at General Penn Dicksee's to-
day ; and they have no doubt about the truth of the
news. The General has motored down to Aldershot.
They will begin some attempt at mobilizing at once,
I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into touch
with headquarters. All the War Office people are
away for the week-end. In fact, they say the Min-
ister's in Ipswich, and can't get away. General Penn
Dicksee says they have practically no material to
work with for any immediate mobilization purposes.
He says that under the present system nothing can be
done in less than a week. He thinks the most useful
force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks.
But I should suppose they would be wanted for the
ships if we have any ships left fit for sea. The
General thinks there may be a hundred thousand
German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of
London by to-morrow."
" Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, " it doesn't seem
easy to take it any other way than seriously; not if
one's on the British side. And, for the matter of
that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty
seriously in East Anglia, and and in Berlin."
And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra
Sunday work for Wardle, and the way they had
started selling peacocks' feathers and things, in the
streets !
152
XV
SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,
Prolong the present !
Time, stand still here! "
The prompt stern Goddess
Shakes her head, frowning;
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal ;
Their hour is gone. MATTHEW ARNOLD.
I STAYED to dinner at the flat in South Ken-
sington, and after dinner, when I spoke of
leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to
accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call
at Printing House Square, and ascertain what
further news had arrived. The implied intimacy and
friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasur-
able thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement
for me, and compensated for much. Constance Grey's
views of me had in some way become more important
to me than anything else. I was even now more con-
cerned about that than about the news.
We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a
cab, as in duty bound, but, doubtless with a thought
of my finances, my companion insisted upon the
153
THE MESSAGE
cheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but
found them at last on a motor omnibus bound for
Whitechapel. The streets were densely crowded, and
the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before
was now general, and much more marked.
" It reminds me exactly of ' Maf eking Night,' " I
said, referring to that evening of the South African
war during which London waxed drunk upon the
news of the relief of Mafeking.
" Was it as bad even then? " said my companion.
And her question showed me, what I might otherwise
have overlooked, that a good deal of water had
passed under the bridges since South African war
days. We had been a little ashamed of our innocent
rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We had become
vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I
think the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken
their share in the progress, by breaking down much
of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the respect-
able middle class. But, of course, one sees now that
the rapid growth among us of selfish irresponsibility
and repudiation of national obligations was the root
cause of that change in public behaviour which I saw
clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by
Constance Grey's question.
I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy
promenaders of both sexes who filled the streets, and
impeded traffic at all crossings, the class which had
always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy,
and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in
strength, by recruits from a class which, a few years
before, had been proverbially noted for its decorous
154
SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I
learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to
practically empty churches. A man we met in The
Times office told us of this, and my companion's com-
ment was:
" Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them
than their pleasure ; and, with religion a dead letter,
the spirit that won Trafalgar and armed the Thames
against Napoleon, must be dead and buried."
The news we received at The Times office was ex-
traordinary. It seemed there was no longer room
for the smallest doubt that a large portion of East
Anglia was actually occupied by a German army.
Positive details of information could not be obtained.
" The way the coastal districts have been hermetic-
ally sealed against communication, and the speed and
thoroughness with which the occupation has been
accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amaz-
ing episode in the history of warfare," said the
solemn graybeard, to whom I had been presented by
Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the
assistant editor of The Mass, I doubt if this Mr.
Poole-Smith would have consented to open his mouth
in my presence. But my obscurity and his impor-
tance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with
confidence as the friend of a respected contributor.)
" Already we know enough to be certain that the
enemy has received incalculably valuable assistance
from within. I am afraid there will presently be
only too much evidence of the blackest kind of treach-
ery from British subjects, members of one or other
among the anti-National coteries. But in the mean-
155
THE MESSAGE
time, we hear of extraordinary things accomplished
by aliens employed in this country, many of them in
official capacities. We have learned through the
Great Eastern Railway Company, and through one
or two shipping houses, of huge consignments of
stores, and, I make very little doubt, of munitions of
war. The thing must have been in train on this side
for many months possibly for years. Here, for
instance, is an extraordinary item, which is hardly
likely to be only coincidence: Out of one hundred
postmasters within a sixty-mile radius of Harwich,
eighty-one have obtained their positions within the
last two years, and of those sixty-nine bear names
which indicate German nationality or extraction.
But that is only one small item. An analysis of the
Eastern Railway employees, and of the larger busi-
ness firms between here and Ipswich, will tell a more
startling tale, unless I am greatly mistaken."
But to me, I think the part of the news we gath-
ered which seemed most startling was the fact that a
tiny special issue of The Times, then being sold in the
streets, contained none of the information given to
us, but only a cautiously worded warning t the
public that the news received from East Anglia had
been grossly exaggerated, and that no definite impor-
tance should be attached to it, until authoritative
information, which would appear in the first ordinary
issue of The Times on Monday, had been considered.
It was all worded very pompously, and vaguely, in
a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader
to conclude that The Times supported the generally
accepted hoax theory. And we found that all the
156
SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
daily papers of repute and standing had issued sim-
ilar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our
grave informant stroked his whiskers, and alluded
distantly to " policy decided upon in consultation
with representatives of the Crown."
" For one thing, you see, London is extraordinarily
full of Germans, though we have already learned that
vast numbers of them went to swell the attendance at
the East Anglian Pageant, and may now, for all we
know, be under arms. Then, too, anything in the
nature of a panic on a large scale, and that before
the authorities have decided upon any definite plan of
action, would be disastrous. Unfortunately our re-
ports from correspondents at the various southern
military depots are all to the effect that mobilization
will be a slow business. As you know, the regulars
in England have been reduced to an almost negligi-
ble minimum, and the mobilization of the ' Haldane
Army ' involves the slow process of drawing men out
of private life into the field. What is worse, it means
in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves
at Aldershot, and south-country men reporting them-
selves in the north. And then their practical knowl-
edge so far leaves them simply men in the
street."
" But the great trouble is that the Government and
the official heads of departments have been at logger-
heads this long time past, and now are far from arriv-
ing at any definite policy of procedure. Of course,
the majority of the leaders are out of town. You
will understand that every possible precaution must
be taken to avoid unduly alarming the public, or pro-
157
THE MESSAGE
yoking panic. We hope to be able to announce
something definite in the morning. The sympathy
of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for
every known tenet of international law has been out-
raged by this entirely unprovoked invasion."
" And what do you think will be the practical effect
and use of their sympathy, Mr. Poole-Smith ? " asked
Constance Grey.
" Well," said our solemn friend, caressing his whis-
kers, " as to its practical effect, my dear Miss Grey,
why, I am afraid that in such bitter matters as these
the practical value of sympathy, or of international
law, is er cannot very easily be defined."
" Quite so. Exactly as I thought. It would not
make one pennyworth of difference, Mr. Poole-Smith.
The British public is on the eve of learning the mean-
ing of brave old Lord Roberts's teaching: that no
amount of diplomacy, of ' cordiality,' of treaties, or
of anything else in the repertoire of the disarmament
party, can ever counterbalance the uses of the rifle
in the hands of disciplined men. Their twentieth-
century notions will avail us pitifully little against
the advance of the Kaiser's legions. The brotherhood
of man and the sacred arts of commerce and peace
will have little in the way of reply to machine guns.
If only our people could have had even one year of
universal military training ! But no ; they would not
even pay for the maintenance of such defence force
as they had when it took three years to beat the
Boers ; and now didn't some man write a book
called ' The Defenceless Isles '? We live in them."
" But that is not the worst, Miss Grey," said our
158
SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
friend. " These are now not only defenceless, but
invaded isles."
" Ah ! How long before they become surrendered
isles, Mr. Poole-Smith? "
" The answer to that is with a higher Power than
any in Printing House Square, Miss Grey. But,
let me say this, in strict confidence, please. You
wonder, and perhaps are inclined to condemn our
well, our reticence about this news. Do you know
my fear? It is that if, in its present mood, suddenly,
the British public, and more especially the London
public, were allowed to realize clearly both what has
happened in East Anglia, and the monumental unfit-
ness of our authorities and defences to meet and cope
with such an emergency that then we should see
England torn in sunder by the most terrible revolu-
tion of modern times. We should see statesmen hang-
ing from lamp-posts in Whitehall ; ' The Destroyers '
would be destroyed ; the Crown would be in danger,
as well as its unworthy servants. And the Kaiser's
machine-like army would find it had invaded a rav-
aged inferno, occupied by an infuriated populace
hopelessly divided against itself, and already in the
grip of the deadliest kind of strife. That, I think,
is a danger to be guarded against, so far as it is
possible, at all or any cost."
One could not but be impressed by this rather
pompous, but sincere and earnest man's words.
" I see that very clearly, Mr. Poole-Smith," said
Constance Grey. " But can the thing be done? Can
the public be deluded for more than a few hours ? "
" Not altogether, my dear young lady, not alto-
159
THE MESSAGE
gether. But, as we learn early in journalism, life is
made up of compromises. We hope to school them
to it, and give them the truth gradually, with as little
shock as may be."
Soon after this we left the great office, and, as we
passed out into the crowded streets, Constance Grey
said to me:
" Thank God, The Times managed to win clear of
the syndicate's clutches when it did. There is moral
and strength of purpose there now. I think the Press
is behaving finely if only the public can be made to
do as well. But, oh, ' The Destroyers ' what a
place they have cut out for themselves in history ! "
But for the glorious summer weather, one could
have fancied Christmas at hand from the look of Lud-
gate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look up
at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the
evening sky. But between it and us was a seething
crowd, promenading at the rate of a mile an hour,
and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless
trifles and fruit, and so forth.
Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to
the steps of an omnibus, was a band of youths linked
arm in arm, and all apparently intoxicated. There
must have been forty in a line. As they advanced,
cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in
something like unison, the melancholy music-hall re-
frain :
" They'll never go for England, because England's
got the dibs."
The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up
grass, and narrow Fleet Street echoed to the mon-
160
SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
strous din of their singing. I began to feel anxious
about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out
of the fourteen people on the top of our omnibus
were noticeably and noisily tipsy.
" Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British re-
serve? How I hate that beloved word cosmopoli-
tan!"
She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her
of something.
" Forgive my familiarity," she said. " John Cron-
dall spoke of you as Dick Mordan. It's rather a way
we have out there."
I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned
me the friendly short name from her for the future;
and, with England tumbling about our ears, for
aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously
happy. But it was none the less with a sigh of relief
that I handed her in at the outer door of the mansions
in which their flat was situated. We paused for a
moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy
we had known that evening, and the last, I thought,
with a recollection of Mrs. Van Homrey waiting in
the flat above.
I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full
to bursting. Perhaps the great news of that day
affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I
had no words, or very few. I remember I touched
the sleeve of her dress with my finger-tips. What I
said was:
" You know I am you know I am at your orders,
don't you?"
And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth,
161
THE MESSAGE
while the light of grave watching never flickered in
her eyes.
" Yes, Dick ; and thank you ! " she said, as we
began to mount the stairs.
Yet I was still the assistant editor of The Mass
Clement Elaine's right hand.
162
XVI
A PERSONAL REVELATION
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted ; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
BYRON.
'"T^HAT Sunday night was not one of London's
JL black nights that have been so often described.
The police began to be a little sharp with the people
after nine or ten o'clock, and by midnight the streets
were getting tolerably clear. For the great maj ority,
I believe it had been a day of more or less pleasur-
able excitement and amusement. For the minority,
who were better informed, it was a day and night of
curious bewilderment and restless anxiety.
I looked in at several newspaper offices on my way
home from South Kensington, but found that sub-
ordinate members of the staffs had no information to
give, and that their superiors maintained an attitude
of strict reticence. As I passed the dark windows of
my own office I thought of our " feature " for the
coming week : the demand for disarmament, in order
that naval and military expenditure might be diverted
into labour reform channels ; Herr Mitmann's volu-
ble assurances of the friendliness of the German peo-
ple ; of the ability and will of the German Socialists
163
THE MESSAGE
to make German aggression impossible, for the sake
of their brother workers in England.
I thought of these things, and wished I could spurn
under foot my connection with The Mass. Then,
sitting at the window of my little bed-sitting-room
in Bloomsbury, I looked into my petty finances. If I
left Clement Elaine I had enough to subsist upon for
six or eight weeks. It was a risky business. Then I
pictured myself casually mentioning to Constance
Grey that I was no longer connected with The Mass.
I fancied that I saw the bright approval in her eyes.
Before blowing my light out, I had composed the little
speech to Elaine which, in the morning, should set
a period to our connection.
And then I thought of Beatrice. It was barely
twenty-four hours since we had parted beside Batter-
sea Park (though it seemed more like twenty-four
days), and recollection showed me Beatrice in her
rather rumpled finery, with the bleakness of the gray
hour that follows such pleasures as most appealed to
her, beginning to steal over her handsome face, sap-
ping its warm colour, thinning and sharpening its
ripe, smooth contours. Beatrice would pout when
she heard of my leaving her father. The thought
showed me her full red lips, and the little even white
teeth they so often disclosed.
The curves of Beatrice's mouth were of a kind that
have twisted many men's lives awry ; and those men
have thought straightness well lost for such red lips.
Yes, Beatrice was good to look upon. She had a way
of throwing her head back, and showing the smooth,
round whiteness of her throat when she laughed, that
164
A PERSONAL REVELATION
had thrilled me time and again. And how often, and
how gaily she laughed.
In the midst of a picture of Beatrice, laughing at
me across a restaurant table with a raised glass in
her hand, I had a shadowy vision of Constance Grey
beside the foot of the stairs in South Kensington.
There was no laughter in her face. I had gathered,
when I dined there, that Constance did not care for
wine. She had said : " I don't care for anything that
makes me feel as though I couldn't work if I wanted
to." How Beatrice would have scoffed at that ! And
then, how Constance would have smiled over Bea-
trice's ideals her " fluffy " evenings in a kind of
regretful, wondering way ; almost as she had smiled
when she first called me " Dick," in asking what had
become of our staid English reserve; as she watched
the noisy crowd in Fleet Street, singing its silly dog-
gerel about England's security and England's
" dibs."
And then, suddenly, my picture-making thoughts
swept out across low Essex flats to the only part of
East Anglia with which I was familiar, and gave me
a vision of burning farmhouses, and terror-smitten
country-folk fleeing blindly before a hail of bullets,
and the pitiless advance of legions of fair-haired men
in long coats of a kind of roan-gray, buttoned across
the chest with bright buttons arranged to suggest
the inward curve to an imaginary waist-line. The
faces of the soldiers were all the same; they all had
the face of Herr Mitmann of Stettin. And a hot
wave of angry resentment and hatred of these
machine-like invaders of a peaceful unprotected
165
THE MESSAGE
countryside pulsed through my veins. Could they
dare here on English soil? My fists clenched under
the bed-clothes. If it was true, by heavens, there was
work for Englishmen toward !
My blood was hot at the thought. It was perhaps
the first swelling of a patriotic emotion I had known ;
the first hint of any larger citizenship than that
which claims and demands, without thought of giving.
And, immediately, it was succeeded by a sharp chill,
a chill that ushered me into one of the bitterest mo-
ments of humiliation that I can remember. The
thought accompanying that chill was this :
" What can you do? What are you fit for ? What
boy's part, even, can you take, though the roof were
being burned over your mother's head? What of
Constance, or Beatrice? Could you strike a blow for
either? Work for Englishmen, forsooth! Yes, for
those of them who have ever learned a man's part
in such work. But you you have never had a gun
in your hand. What have you done? You have
poured out for your weekly wage so many thousands
of words ; words meaning what ? Why, they have
meant what the roadside beggar means : * Give !
Give ! Give ! ' They have urged men to demand
more from the State, and give the State nothing; to
rob the State of even its defences, for the sake of
adding to their own immediate ease. And you have
ridiculed, as a survival of barbarous times, the efforts
of such men as the brave old Field Marshal who gave
his declining years to the thankless task of urging
England to make some effort of preparation to fend
off just that very crisis which has now come upon her,
166
A PERSONAL REVELATION
and found her absolutely unprepared. That is how
you have earned your right to live, a citizen of the
freest country in the world, a subject of the greatest
Empire the world has ever seen. And when you have
had leisure and money to spend, you have devoted it
to overeating and drinking, and helping to fill the tills
of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your part.
And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you,
whose qualification is that you can wield the pen of
a begging letter-writer, who is also scurrilous and in-
solent you lie in bed and clench your useless hands,
and prate of work for Englishmen ! "
That was the thought that came to me with a
sudden chill that night ; and I suppose I was one of
the earliest among millions doomed to writhe under
the impotent shame of such a thought. I shall never
forget that night in my Bloomsbury lodging. It
was my ordeal of self-revelation. I suppose I slept
a little toward morning ; but I rose early with a kind
of vague longing to escape from the company of the
personality my thought had shown me in the night.
It is natural that the awakening of an individual
should be a more speedy process than the awakening
of a people a nation. I regard my early rising
on that Monday morning as the beginning of my
first real awakening to life as an Englishman. I had
still far to go I had not even crossed the threshold
as yet.
167
xvn
ONE STEP FORWARD
Thy trust, thy honours, these were great; the greater now thy
shame, for thou hast proved both unready and unfit, unworthy
offspring of a noble sire! MERKOW'S Country Tales.
FIVE minutes after Clement Elaine reached the
office of The Mass that morning, he had lost
the services of his assistant editor, and I felt that I
had taken one step upward from a veritable quag-
mire of humiliation.
Blaine was almost too excited about the news of the
day to pay much heed to my little speech of resig-
nation. The morning paper to which he subscribed
a Radical journal of pronounced tone had ob-
served far less reticence than most of its contempora-
ries, and, in its desire to lend sensational interest to
its columns, had not minimized in any way the start-
ling character of such intelligence as it had received.
" The bloodthirsty German devils ! " said Blaine,
the erstwhile apostle of internationalism and the
socialistic brotherhood of man. " By God, the Ad-
miralty and the War Office ought to swing for this !
Here are we taxed out of house and home to support
their wretched armies and navies, and German sol-
diers marching on London, they say, with never a
sign of a hand raised to oppose 'em damn them !
168
ONE STEP FORWARD
Nice time you choose to talk of leaving. By God,
Mordan, you may be leaving from against a wall with
a bullet through your head, next thing you know.
These German devils don't wear kid gloves, I fancy.
They're not like our tin-pot army. Army! we
haven't got one lot of gold-laced puppets ! "
That was how Clement Blaine was moved by the
news. Last week : " Bloated armaments," " huge
battalions of idle men eating the heart out of the
nation through its revenues." This week, we had no
army, and because of it the Admiralty and the War
Office ought to " swing." In Elaine's ravings I had
my foretaste of public opinion on the crisis.
On the previous day I had listened to a prominent
Member of Parliament urging that our children
should be preserved from the contamination of con-
tact with those who taught the practice of the " hell-
ish art " of shooting.
The leading daily papers of this Monday morning
admitted the central fact that England had been in-
vaded during Saturday night, and even allowed read-
ers to assume that portions of the eastern counties
were then occupied by " foreign " troops. But they
used the word " raid " in place of " invasion," and
generally qualified it with such a word as " futile."
The general tone was that a Power with whom we
had believed ourselves to be upon friendly terms had
been guilty of rash and provocative action toward
us, which it would speedily be made to regret. It
was an insult, which would be promptly avenged;
full atonement for which would be demanded and ob-
tained at once. It was even suggested that some
169
THE MESSAGE
tragic misunderstanding would be found to lie at the
root of the whole business ; and in any case, things
were to be set right without delay. One journal, the
Standard, did go so far as to say that the British
public was likely to be forced now into learning at
great cost a lesson which had been offered daily as
a free gift since the opening of the century, and as
steadily repudiated or ignored.
" Two things it should teach England," said this
journal; "never to invite insult and contempt by a
repetition of Sunday's Disarmament Demonstration
or enunciation of its fallacious and dangerous teach-
ing ; and the necessity for paying instant heed to the
warnings of the advocates of universal military train-
ing for purposes of home defence."
But at that time the nicknames of the " The Im-
perialist Banner " and " The Patriotic Pulpit," ap-
plied by various writers and others to this great
newspaper, were scornful names, applied with oppro-
brious intent ; and London was still full of people
whose only comment upon this sufficiently badly-
needed warning would be : " Oh, of course, the
Standard! "
But the policy of reticence, though I have no doubt
that it did save London from some terrible scenes of
panic, was not to be tenable for many hours. Within
half an hour of noon special editions of a halfpenny
morning paper, and an evening paper belonging to
the same proprietors, were issued simultaneously with
a full, sensational, and quite unreserved statement of
all the news obtainable from East Anglia. A number
of motor-cyclists had been employed in the quest of
170
ONE STEP FORWARD
intelligence, and one item of the news they had to
tell was that Colchester had offered resistance to the
invaders, and as a result had been shelled and burned
to the ground. A number of volunteers and other
civilians had been found bearing arms, and had been
tried by drum-head court martial and shot within the
hour, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the
German forces.
Another sensational item was a copy of a proclama-
tion issued by the German Commander-in-Chief. This
proclamation was dated from Ipswich, and I think
it struck more terror into the people than any other
single item of intelligence published during that
eventful day. It was headed with the Imperial Ger-
man Arms, and announced the establishment of Ger-
man military jurisdiction in England. It announced
that the penalty of immediate death would be inflicted
without any exception upon any British subject not
wearing and being entitled to wear British military
uniform who should be found:
1. Taking arms against the invaders.
2. Misleading German troops.
3. Injuring in any manner whatever any German
subject.
4. Injuring any road, rail, or waterway, or means
of communication.
5. Offering resistance of any kind whatsoever to
the advance and occupation of the German Army.
Then followed peremptory details of instructions
as to the supplies which every householder must fur-
nish for the German soldiers quartered in his neigh-
bourhood, and an announcement as to the supreme
171
THE MESSAGE
and inviolable authority of the German officer in
command of any given place.
Nothing else yet published brought home to the
public the realization of what had happened as did
this coldly pompous and, in the circumstances, very
brutal proclamation. And no item in it so bit into
the hearts of the bewildered Londoners who read it
as did the clear incisive statement to the effect that
a British subject who wore no military uniform would
be shot like a dog if he raised a hand in the defence
of his country or his home. He must receive the in-
vader with open arms, and provide him food, lodging,
and assistance of every kind, or be led out and shot.
There were hundreds of thousands of men in London
that day who would have given very much for the
right to wear a uniform which they had learned
almost to despise of late years ; a uniform many of
them had wished to abolish altogether, as the badge
of a primitive and barbarous trade, a " hellish
art."
We had talked glibly enough of war, of its impossi-
bility in England, and of the childish savagery of the
appeal to arms; just as, a few years earlier, before
the naval reductions, we had talked of England's in-
violability, secured her by her unquestioned mastery
of the sea. We had written and spoken hundreds of
thousands of fine words upon these subjects; and,
within the last forty-eight hours, we had demon-
strated with great energy the needlessness of armed
forces for England. For and against, about it and
about, we had woven a mazy network of windy plati-
tudes and catch-phrases, all devised to hide the mani-
172
ONE STEP FORWARD
f est and manly duties of citizenship ; all intended to
justify the individual's exclusive concentration upon
his own personal pleasures and aggrandizement, with-
out waste of time or energy upon any claims of the
commonwealth.
And now, in a few score of short, sharp words, in
a single brief document, peremptorily addressed to
the fifty million people of these islands, a German
soldier had brought an end to all our vapourings, all
our smug, self-interested theories, and shattered the
monstrous fabric of our complaisance, as it were, with
a rattle of his sword-hilt. Never before in history
had a people's vanity been so shaken by a word.
In the early afternoon an unavoidable errand took
me to a northeastern suburb. I made my return to
town as one among an army of refugees. The people
had begun flocking into London from as far north
and east as Brentwood. The Great Eastern Railway
was disorganized. The northern highways leading
into London were occupied by unbroken lines of peo-
ple journeying into the city for protection afoot,
in motor-cars, on cycles, and in every kind of horse-
drawn vehicle, and carrying with them the strangest
assortment of personal belongings.
At the earliest possible hour I made my way toward
South Kensington. I told myself there might be
something I could do for Constance Grey. Beyond
that there was the fact that I craved another sight
of her, and I longed to hear her comment when she
knew I had finished with The Mass.
A porter on the Underground Railway told me that
the Southwestern and Great Western termini were
173
THE MESSAGE
blocked by feverish crowds of well-to-do people,
struggling, with their children, for places in trains
bound south and west. Huge motor-cars of the more
luxurious type whizzed past one in the street continu-
ously, their canopies piled high with bags, their bodies
full of women and children, their chaffeurs driving
hard toward the southern and western highways.
Outside South Kensington station I had my first
sight of a Royal Proclamation upon the subject of
the invasion. Evidently the Government realized
that, prepared or unprepared, the state of affairs
could no longer be hidden from the public. The King
was at Buckingham Palace that day I knew, and it
seemed to me that I read rather his Majesty's own
sentiments than those of his Cabinet in the Proclama-
tion. I gathered that the general public also formed
this impression.
There is no need for me to reproduce a document
which forms part of our history. The King's famous
reference to the Government " The Destroyers "
" Though admittedly unprepared for such a blow,
my Government is taking prompt steps for coping in
a decisive manner," etc. ; and again, the equally fa-
mous reference to the German Emperor, in the sen-
tence beginning : " This extraordinary attack by the
armed forces of my Royal and Imperial nephew."
These features of a nobly dignified and restrained
Address seemed to me to be a really direct communi-
cation from their Sovereign to the English people.
Whatever might be said of the position of " The
Destroyers " in Whitehall, it became evident, even at
this early stage, that the Throne was in no danger
174
ONE STEP FORWARD
that the sanctity pertaining to the person of the
Monarch who, as it were in despite of his Government,
had done more for the true cause of peace than any
other in Europe, remained inviolate in the hearts of
the people.
For the rest, the Proclamation was a brief, simple
statement of the facts, with an equally simple but
very heart-stirring appeal to every subject of the
Crown to concentrate his whole energies, under
proper guidance, upon the task of repelling " this
dastardly and entirely unprovoked attack upon our
beloved country."
I heard many deeply significant and interesting
comments from the circle of men and women who were
reading this copy of the Proclamation. The remarks
of two men I repeat here because in both cases they
were typical and representative. The first remark
was from a man dressed as a navvy, with a short clay
pipe in his mouth. He said:
" Oh, yus ; the King's all right ; Gawd bless un !
No one 'Id mind fightin' for 'im. It's 'is blighted
Gov'nment wot's all bloomin' wrong blast 'em ! "
The reply came from a young man evidently of
sedentary occupation a shop-assistant or clerk :
" You're all right, too, old sport ; but don't you
forget the other feller's proclamation. If you 'aven't
got no uniform, your number's up for lead pills, an'
don't you forget it. A fair fight an' no favour's all
right; but I'm not on in this blooming execution act,
thank you. Edward R. I. will have to pass me, I can
see."
" Well, 'e won't lose much matey, when all's said.
175
THE MESSAGE
But you're English, anyway ; that seems a pity.
Why don't yer run 'ome ter yer ma, eh ? "
" Go it, old sport. You're a blue-blooded Tory ;
an Imperialist, aren't you? "
" Not me, boy ; I'm only an able-bodied man."
" What ho ! Got a flag in your pocket, have you ?
You watch the Germans don't catch you fer sausage
meat."
And then I passed on, heading for Constance
Grey's flat. I reflected that I had done my share
toward forming the opinions, the mental attitude of
that young clerk or shop-assistant. The type was
familiar enough. But I had had no part nor lot in
the preservation of that navvy's simple patriotism.
Rather, by a good deal, had the tendency of all I
said and wrote been toward weakening the sturdy
growth, and causing it to be deprecated as a thing
archaic, an obstacle in the way of progress.
Progress ! The expounding of Herr Mitmann of
Stettin! That Monday was a minor day of judg-
ment for others beside myself.
176
XVIII
THE DEAR LOAF
A third of the people, then, in the event of war, would immedi-
ately be reduced to starvation: and the rest of the thirty-eight
million would speedily be forced thither. L. COPE COENFORD'S
The Defenceless Islands (London, 1906).
I SAW Constance Grey only for a few minutes dur-
ing that day. She had passed the stage of
shocked sorrow and sad fear in which I had found
her on Sunday, and was exceedingly busy in organiz-
ing a corps of assistant nurses, women who had had
some training, and were able to provide a practical
outfit of nursing requisites. She had the countenance
of the Army Medical authorities, but her nursing
corps was to consist exclusively of volunteers.
The organizing ability this girl displayed was ex-
traordinary. She spared five minutes for conversa-
tion, and warmed my heart with her appreciation of
my severance of The Mass connection. And then,
before I knew what had happened, she had me im-
pressed, willingly enough, in her service, and I was
off upon an errand connected with the volunteer
nursing corps. News had arrived of some wounded
refugees in Romford, unable to proceed on their way
into London ; and a couple of motor-cars, with nurses
and medical comforts, were despatched at once.
177
THE MESSAGE
Detailed news of the sacking of Colchester showed
this to have been a most extraordinarily brutal affair
for the work of a civilized army. The British regu-
lar troops at Colchester represented the whole of our
forces of the northeastern division, and included three
batteries of artillery. The regiments of this division
had been reduced to three, and for eighteen months
or more these had been mere skeletons of regiments,
the bulk of the men being utilized to fill other gaps
caused by the consistently followed policy of reduc-
tion which had characterized " The Destroyers' '
regime.
A German spy who had been captured in Romford
and brought to London, said that the Commander-in-
Chief of the German forces in England had publicly
announced to his men that the instructions received
from their Imperial master were that the pride of the
British people must be struck down to the dust ; that
the first blows must be crushing; that the British
people were to be smitten with terror from which
recovery should be impossible.
Be this as it may, the sacking of Colchester was a
terrible business. A number of citizens had joined
the shockingly small body of regulars in a gallant
attempt at defence. The attempt was quite hopeless ;
the German superiority in numbers, discipline, metal,
and material being quite overwhelming. But the
German commander was greatly angered by the re-
sistance offered, and, as soon as he ascertained that
civilians had taken part in this, the town was first
shelled and then stormed. It was surrounded by a
cordon of cavalry, and no prisoners were taken.
178
THE DEAR LOAF
The town was burned to the ground, though many
valuable stores were first removed from it ; and those
of the inhabitants who had not already fled were
literally mown down in their native streets, without
parley or quarter men, women, and children being
alike regarded as offenders against the edict forbid-
ding any civilian British subject, upon pain of death,
to offer any form of resistance to German troops.
I myself spoke to a man in Knightsbridge that eve-
ning who had definite news that his nineteen-year-old
daughter, a governess in the house of a Colchester
doctor, was among those shot down in the streets of
the town while endeavouring to make her escape with
two children. The handful of British regulars had
been shot or cut to pieces, and the barracks and stores
taken over by the Germans.
As I left Constance Grey's flat that evening I
passed a small baker's shop, before which an angry
crowd was engaged in terrifying a small boy in a
white apron, who was nervously endeavouring to put
up the window shutters. I asked what the trouble
was, and was told the baker had refused to sell his
half-quartern loaves under sevenpence, or his quar-
tern loaves under a shilling.
" It's agin the law, so it is," shouted an angry
woman. " I'm a policeman's wife, an' I know what
I'm talking about. I'll have the law of the nasty
mean hound, so I will, with his shillin' for a fivepenny
loaf, indeed ! "
Long before this time, and while Britain still held
on to a good proportion of her foreign trade, it had
been estimated by statisticians that in the United
179
THE MESSAGE
Kingdom some ten to twelve million persons lived
always upon the verge of hunger. But since then the
manufacturers of protected countries, notably Ger-
many and the United States, had, as was inevitable
in the face of our childish clinging to what we mis-
called " free " trade, crowded the British manufac-
turer out of practically every market in the world,
except those of Canada. Those also must of necessity
have been lost, but for the forbearing and enduring
loyalty of the Canadian people, who, in spite of per-
sistent rebuffs, continue4 to extend and to increase
their fiscal preference for imports from the Mother-
country.
But, immense as Canada's growth was even then,
no one country could keep the manufacturers of
Britain busy ; and I believe I am right in saying that
at this time the number of those who lived always on
the verge of hunger had increased to at least fifteen
millions. Cases innumerable there were in which
manufacturers themselves had gone to swell the ranks
of the unemployed and insufficiently employed; the
monstrous legion of those who lived always close to
the terrifying spectre of hunger.
If the spirit of Richard Cobden walked the earth
at that time, even as his obsessions assuredly still
cumbered it, it must have found food for bitter re-
flection in the hundreds of empty factories, grass-
grown courtyards, and broken-windowed warehouses,
which a single day's walk would show one in the north
of England.
You may be sure I thought of those things as I
walked away from that baker's shop in South Ken-
180
THE DEAR LOAF
sington. A journalist, even though he be only the
assistant of a man like Blaine, is apt to see the condi-
tions of life in his country fairly plainly, because he
has a wider vision of them than most men. Into Fleet
Street, each day brings an endless stream of " news
items," not only from all parts of the world, but from
every town and city in the kingdom. And your jour-
nalist, though he may have scant leisure for its diges-
tion, absorbs the whole of this mass of intelligence
each day in the process of conveying one-tenth part
of it, in tabloid form, to the public.
If one assumes for the moment that only twelve
million people in Great Britain were living on hun-
ger's extreme edge at that time, the picture I had of
the sullen, angry crowd outside the baker's shop re-
mains a sufficiently sinister one. As a matter of fact,
I believe that particular baker was a shade prema-
ture, or a penny or two excessive, in his advance of
prices. But I know that by nightfall you could not
have purchased a quartern loaf for elevenpence half-
penny within ten miles of Charing Cross. The
Bakers' Society had issued its mandates broadcast.
Shop-windows were stoned that night in south and
east London ; but twenty-four hours later the price
of the quartern loaf was Is. 3d., and a man offering
Is. 2d. would go empty away.
And with the same loaf selling at one-third the
price, twelve million persons at least had lived always
on the verge of hunger. I mention the staple food
only, but precisely the same conditions applied to all
other food-stuffs with the exception of dairy produce,
the price of which was quadrupled by Tuesday after-
181
THE MESSAGE
noon, and fish, the price of which put it at once
beyond the reach of all save the rich, and all delica-
cies, the prices of which became prohibitive. Twelve
million persons had lived on the verge of hunger,
before, under normal conditions, and when the coun-
try's trade had been far larger and more prosperous
than of late. Now, with the necessities of lif e stand-
ing at fully three times normal prices, a large number
of trades employing many thousands of work-people
were suddenly shut down upon, and rendered com-
pletely inoperative.
It must be borne in mind that we had been warned
again and again that matters would be precisely thus
and not otherwise in the event of war, and we had
paid no heed whatever to the telling.
Historians have explained for us that the primary
reason of the very sudden rise to famine rates of the
prices of provisions was the persistent rumour that
the effective bulk of the Channel Fleet had been cap-
tured or destroyed on its way northward from Span-
ish waters. German strategy had drawn the Fleet
southward, in the first place, by means of an inter-
national " incident " in the Mediterranean, which was
clearly the bait of what rumour called a death-trap.
Once trapped, it was said, German seamanship and
surprise tactics had done the rest.
The crews of the Channel Fleet ships (considerably
below full strength) had been rushed out of shore
barracks, in which discipline had fallen to a terribly
low ebb, to their unfamiliar shipboard stations, at the
time of the Mediterranean scare. Beset by the flower
of the German Navy, in ships manned by crews who
182
THE DEAR LOAF
Kred afloat, it was asserted that the Channel Fleet had
been annihilated, and that the entire force of the
German Navy was concentrated upon the task of
patrolling English waters.
We know that men and horses, stores and muni-
tions of war, were pouring steadily and continuously
into East Angtia from Germany daring this time, es-
corted by German cruisers and torpedo-boats, and
uninterrupted by British ships. There was yet no
report of the Channel Fleet, the ships of which
were already twenty-four hours overdue at Ports-
mouth.
Two things, more than any others, had influenced
the British Navy during the Administration of " The
Destroyers " : the total cessation of building opera-
tions, and the withdrawal of ships and men from sea
service. The reserve ships had long been unfit to put
to sea, the reserve crews had, for all practical pur-
poses, become landsmen landsmen among whom
want of sea-going discipline had of late produced
many mutinous outbreaks.
It had been said by the most famous admiral of the
time, and said without much exaggeration, that,
within twelve months of " The Destroyers' " aban-
donment of the traditional two-Power standard of
efficiency, the British Navy had u fallen to half-
Power standard." The process was quickened, of
course, by the unprecedented progress of the German
Navy during the same period. It was said that at the
end of 1907 the German Government had ships of
war building in every great dockyard in the world.
It is known that the entire fleet of the u Kaiser " class
1S3
THE MESSAGE
torpedo-boats and destroyers was built and set afloat
at the German Emperor's own private expense.
Then there were the " Well-borns," as they were
called vessels of no great weight of metal, it is
true, but manned, armed, officered, and found better
perhaps than any other war-ships in the world; en-
tirely at the instigation of the German Navy League,
and out of the pockets of the German nobility. The
majority of our own wealthy classes preferred sink-
ing their money in German motor-cars and German
pleasure resorts ; or one must assume so, for it is well
known that our Navy League had long since ceased
to exert any active influence, because it was unable to
raise funds enough to pay its office expenses.
Our Navy might have had a useful reserve to draw
upon in the various auxiliary naval bodies if these
had not, one by one, been abolished. The Mercantile
Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance
in this respect, for our ships at that time carried
eighty-seven thousand foreign officers and men, three
parts of whom were Teutons. These facts were pre-
sumably all well known to the heads and governing
bodies of the various trades, and, that being so, the
extremely pessimistic attitude adopted by them, di-
rectly the fact of invasion was established, is scarcely
to be wondered at.
In banking, insurance, underwriting, stock and
share dealing, manufacturing, and in every branch
of shipping the lead of the bakers were followed, and
in many cases exceeded. The premiums asked in in-
surance and underwriting, and the unprecedented
advance in the bank-rate, corresponding as it did
184
THE DEAR LOAF
with a hopeless " slump " in every stock and share
quoted on the Stock Exchange, from Consols to min-
ing shares, brought business to a standstill in London
on Monday afternoon.
On Tuesday entire blocks of offices remained un-
opened. In business, more perhaps than in any other
walk of life, self-preservation and self-advancement
were at that time, not alone the first, but the only
fixed law. With bread at Is. 4d. a loaf, great ship-
owners in England were cabling the masters of wheat
ships in both hemispheres to remain where they were
and await orders.
This last fact I learned from Leslie Wheeler, whom
I happened to meet hurrying from the City to Water-
loo, on his way down to Weybridge. His family were
leaving for Devonshire next morning, to stay with
relatives there.
" But, bless me ! " I said, when he told me that
friends of his father, shipping magnates, had des-
patched such cable messages that morning, " surely
that's a ruffianly thing to do, when the English people
are crying out for bread ? "
Leslie shrugged his smartly-clad shoulders. " It's
the English people's own affair," he said.
"How's that?"
" Why, you see it's all a matter of insurance. All
commerce is based on insurance, in one form or an-
other. The cost of shipping insurance to-day is ab-
solutely prohibitive; in other words, there isn't any.
We did have a permanent and non-fluctuating form
of insurance of a kind one time. But you Socialist
chaps social reform, Little England for the Eng-
185
THE MESSAGE
lish, and all that you swept that away. Wouldn't
pay for it; said it wasn't wanted. Now it's gone,
and you're feeling the pinch. The worst of it is, you
make the rest of us feel it, too. I'm thankful to say
the dad's pulling out fairly well. He told me yester-
day he hadn't five hundred pounds in anything Brit-
ish. Wise old bird, the dad ! "
My friend's " You Socialist chaps " rather wrang
my withers ; its sting not being lessened at all by my
knowledge of its justice. I asked after the welfare
of the Wheeler family generally, but it was only as
Leslie was closing the door of the cab he hailed that
I mentioned Sylvia.
" Yes, Sylvia's all right," he said, as he waved me
good-bye ; " but she won't come away with the rest
of us absolutely refuses to budge."
And with that he was off, leaving me wondering
about the girl who had at one time occupied so much
of my mind, but of late had had so little of it. Dur-
ing the next few hours I wove quite a pretty story
round Sylvia's refusal to accompany her family. I
even thought of her as joining Constance Grey's
nursing corps.
The thought of this development of Sylvia Wheel-
er's character interested me so much that I wrote to
her that evening, tentatively sympathizing with her
determination not to be frightened away from her
own place. The whole thing was a curious misappre-
hension on my part; but Sylvia's reply (explaining
that it was her particular place of worship she re-
fused to leave, and that she was staying " with his
186
THE DEAR LOAF
Reverence's sister "), though written within twenty-
four hours, did not reach me until after many
days days such as England will never face
again.
187
XIX
THE TRAGIC WEEK
England can never have an efficient army during peace, and she
must, therefore, accept the rebuffs and calamities which are always
in store for the nation that is content to follow the breed of cow-
ards who usually direct her great affairs. The day will come when
she will violently and suddenly lose her former fighting renown to
such an unmistakable extent that the plucky fishwives will march
upon Downing Street, and if they can catch its usual inmates, will
read them. One party is as bad as the other, and I hope and pray
that when the national misfortune of a great defeat at sea over-
takes us, followed by the invasion of England, that John Bull will
turn and rend the jawers and talkers who prevent us from being
prepared to meet invasion. From a letter written by Lord Wolsley,
ex-Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, to Lord Wemyss, and
published, and ignored by the public, in the year 1906.
IT is no part of my intention to make any attempt
to limp after the historians of the Invasion. The
Official History, the half-dozen of standard military
treatises, and the well-known works of Low, Forster,
Gordon, and others, have allowed few details of the
Invasion to escape unrecorded. But I confess it has
always seemed to me that these writers gave less atten-
tion to the immediate aftermath of the Invasion than
that curious period demanded. Yet here was surely
a case in which effect was of vastly more inportance
than cause, and aftermath than crisis. But perhaps
I take that view because I am no historian.
188
THE TRAGIC WEEK
To the non-expert mind, the most bewildering and
extraordinary feature of that disastrous time was the
amazing speed with which crisis succeeded crisis, and
events, each of themselves epoch-making in character,
crashed one upon another throughout the progress
toward Black Saturday. We know now that much
of this fury of haste which was so bewildering at the
time, which certainly has no parallel in history, was
due to the perfection of Germany's long-laid plans.
Major-General Farquarson, in his " Military History
of the Invasion," says:
" It may be doubted whether in all the history of
warfare anything so scientifically perfect as the prep-
arations for this attack can be found. It is safe to
say that every inch of General von Fiichter's prog-
ress was mapped out in Berlin long months before
it came to astound and horrify England. The maps
and plans in the possession of the German staff were
masterpieces of cartographical science and art. The
German Army knew almost to a bale of hay what
provender lay between London and the coast, and
where it was stored ; and certainly their knowledge of
East Anglia far exceeded that of our own authorities.
The world has never seen a quicker blow struck; it
has seldom seen a blow so crushingly severe; it has
not often seen one so aggressively unjustifiable. And,
be it noted, that down to the last halter and the least
fragment of detail, the German Army was provided
with every conceivable aid to success in duplicate.
" Never in any enterprise known to history was
less left to chance. The German War Office left
nothing at all to chance, not even its conception a
189
THE MESSAGE
certainty really of Britain's amazing unreadiness.
And the German Army took no risks. A soldier's
business, whether he be private or Field Marshal, is,
after all, to obey orders. It would be both foolish
and unjust to blame General von Fiichter. But the
fact remains that no victorious army ever risked less
by generosity than the invading German Army. Its
tactics were undoubtedly ruthless ; they were the tac-
tics necessitated by the orders of the Chief of the
Army. They were more severe, more crushing, than
any that have ever been adopted even by a punitive
expedition under British colours. They were suc-
cessful. For that they were intended. Swiftness and
thoroughness were of the essence of the contract.
" With regard to their humanity or morality I am
not here concerned. But it should always be remem-
bered by critics that British apathy and neglect made
British soil a standing temptation to the invader.
The invasion was entirely unprovoked, so far as di-
rect provocation goes. But who shall say it was
entirely undeserved, or even unforeseen, by advisers
whom the nation chose to ignore? This much is cer-
tain : Black Saturday and the tragic events leading
up to it were made possible, not so much by the skill
and forethought of the enemy, which were notable,
as by a state of affairs in England which made that
day one of shame and humiliation, as well as a day
of national mourning. No just recorder may hope
to escape that fact."
In London, the gravest aspect of that tragic week
was the condition of the populace. It is supposed
that over two million people flocked into the capital
190
THE TRAGIC WEEK
during the first three days. And the prices of the
necessities of life were higher in London than any-
where else in the country. The Government measures
for relief were ill-considered and hopelessly inade-
quate. But, in justice to " The Destroyers," it must
be remembered that leading authorities have said that
adequate measures were impossible, from sheer lack of
material.
During one day I think it was Wednesday
huge armies of the hungry unemployed nine-tenths
of our wage-earners were unemployed were set to
work upon entrenchments in the north of London.
But there was no sort of organization, and most of
the men streamed back into the town that night, un-
paid, unfed, and sullenly resentful.
Then, like cannon shots, came the reports of the
fall of York, Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Hull, and
Huddersfield, and the apparently wanton demolition
of Norwich Cathedral. The sinking of the Dread-
nought near the Nore was known in London within
the hour. Among the half-equipped regulars who
were hurried up from the southwest, I saw dozens of
men intercepted in the streets by the hungry crowds,
and hustled into leaving their fellows.
Then came Friday's awful " surrender riot " at
Westminster, a magnificent account of which gives
Martin's big work its distinctive value. I had left
Constance Grey's flat only half an hour before the
riot began, and when I reached Trafalgar Square
there was no space between that and the Abbey in
which a stone could have been dropped without fall-
ing upon a man or a woman. There were women in
191
that maddened throng, and some of them, crying
hoarsely in one breath for surrender and for bread,
were suckling babies.
No Englishman who witnessed it could ever forget
that sight. The Prime Minister's announcement that
the surrender should be made came too late. The
panic and hunger-maddened incendiaries had been at
work. Smoke was rising already from Downing
Street and the back of the Treasury. Then came the
carnage. One can well believe that not a single un-
necessary bullet was fired. Not to believe that would
be to saddle those in authority with a less than human
baseness. But the question history puts is: Who
was primarily to blame for the circumstances which
led up to the tragic necessity of the firing order?
Posterity has unanimously laid the blame upon the
Administration of that day, and assuredly the task
of whitewashing " The Destroyers " would be no
light or pleasant one. But, again, we must remind
ourselves that the essence of the British Constitution
has granted to us always, for a century past at least,
as good a Government as we have deserved. " The
Destroyers " may have brought shame and humilia-
tion upon England. Unquestionably, measures and
acts of theirs produced those effects. But who and
what produced " The Destroyers " as a Government ?
The only possible answer to that is, in the first place,
the British public; in the second place, the British
people's selfish apathy and neglect, where national
duty and responsibility were concerned, and blindly
selfish absorption, in the matter of its own individual
interests and pleasures.
192
THE TRAGIC WEEK
One hundred and thirty-two men, women, and
children killed, and three hundred and twenty-eight
wounded; the Treasury buildings and the official
residence of the Prime Minister gutted ; that was the
casualty list of the " Surrender Riot " at Westmin-
ster. But the figures do not convey a tithe of the
horror, the unforgettable shame and horror, of the
people's attack upon the Empire's sanctuary. The
essence of the tragedy lay in their demand for imme-
diate and unconditional surrender ; the misery of it
lay in " The Destroyers' " weak, delayed, terrified re-
sponse, followed almost immediately by the order to
those in charge of the firing parties an order flung
hysterically at last, the very articulation of panic.
No one is likely to question Martin's assertion that
Friday's tragedy at Westminster must be regarded
" not alone as the immediate cause of Black Satur-
day's national humiliation, but also as the crucial
phase, the pivot upon which the development of the
whole disastrous week turned." But the Westminster
Riot at least had the saving feature of unpremedita-
tion. It was, upon the one side, the outcry of a
wholly undisciplined, hungry, and panic-smitten pub-
lic ; and, upon the other side, the irresponsible, more
than half-hysterical action of a group of terrified and
incompetent politicians. These men had been swept
into great positions, which they were totally unfitted
to fill, by a tidal wave of reactionary public feeling,
and of the blind selfishness of a decadence born of
long freedom from any form of national discipline;
of liberties too easily won and but half-understood;
193
THE MESSAGE
of superficial education as to rights, and absymal ig-
norance as to duties.
But, while fully admitting the soundness of Mar-
tin's verdict, for my part I feel that my experiences
during that week left me with memories not perhaps
more shocking, but certainly more humiliating and
disgraceful to England, than the picture burnt into
my mind by the Westminster Riot. I will mention
two of these.
By Wednesday a large proportion of the rich resi-
dents of Western London had left the capital to take
its chances, while they sought the security of coun-
try homes, more particularly in the southwestern
counties. Such thoroughfares as Piccadilly, Regent
Street, and Bond Street were no longer occupied by
well-dressed people with plenty of money to spend.
Their usual patrons were for the most part absent ;
but, particularly at night, they were none the less
very freely used more crowded, indeed, than ever
before. The really poor, the desperately hungry
people, had no concern whatever with the wrecking
of the famous German restaurants and beer-halls.
They were not among the Regent Street and Picca-
dilly promenaders.
The Londoners who filled these streets at night
the people who sacked the Leicester Square hotel and
took part in the famous orgie which Blackburn de-
scribes as " unequalled in England since the days
of the Plague, or in Europe since the French Revolu-
tion " ; these people were not at all in quest of food.
They were engaged upon a mad pursuit of pleasure
and debauchery and drink. " Eat, drink, and be
194.
THE TRAGIC WEEK
vicious ; but above all, drink and be vicious ; for this
is the end of England ! " That was their watchword.
I have no wish to repeat Blackburn's terrible stories
of rapine and bestiality, of the frenzy of intoxication,
and the blind savagery of these Saturnalias. In their
dreadful nakedness they stand for ever in the pages
of his great book, a sinister blur, a fiery warning,
writ large across the scroll of English history. I
only wish to say that scenes I actually saw with my
own eyes (one episode in trying to check the horror
of which I lost two fingers and much blood), prove
beyond all question to me that, even in its most lurid
and revolting passages, Blackburn's account is a mere
record of fact, and not at all, as some apologists have
sought to show, an exaggerated or overheated version
of these lamentable events.
Regarded as an indication of the pass we had
reached at this period of our decadence, this stage
of our trial by fire, the conduct of the crowds in
Western London during those dreadful nights, im-
pressed me more forcibly than the disaster which
Martin considers the climax and pivot of the week's
tragedy.
One does not cheerfully refer to these things, but,
to be truthful, I must mention the other matter which
produced upon me, personally, the greatest sense of
horror and disgrace.
Military writers have described for us most fully
the circumstances in which General Lord Wensley's
command was cut and blown to pieces in the Epping
and Romford districts. Authorities are agreed that
the records of civilized warfare have nothing more
195
THE MESSAGE
horrible to tell than the history of that ghastly butch-
ery. As a slaughter, there was nothing exactly like
it in the Russo-Japanese war for we know that
there were less than a hundred survivors of the whole
of Lord Wensley's command. But those who
mourned the loss of these brave men had a consola-
tion of which nothing could rob them; the consola-
tion which is graven in stone upon the Epping monu-
ment; a consolation preserved as well in German as
in English history. Germany may truthfully say of
the Epping shambles that no quarter was given that
day. England may say, with what pride she may,
that none was asked. The last British soldier slaugh-
tered in the Epping trenches had no white flag in his
hand, but a broken bayonet, and, under his knee, the
Colours of his regiment.
The British soldiers in those blood-soaked trenches
were badly armed, less than half-trained, under-
officered, and of a low physical standard. But these
lamentable facts had little or nothing to do with their
slaughter. There were but seven thousand of them,
while the German force has been variously estimated
at between seventy thousand and one hundred thou-
sand horse and foot, besides artillery. One need not
stop to question who should bear the blame for the
half -trained, vilely equipped condition of these heroic
victims. The far greater question, to which the only
answer can be a sad silence of remorse and bitter
humiliation, bears upon the awful needlessness of
their sacrifice.
The circumstances have been described in fullest
detail from authentic records. The stark fact which
196
THE TRAGIC WEEK
stands out before the average non-expert observer is
that Lord Wensley was definitely promised reinforce-
ments to the number of twenty thousand horse and
foot; that after the Westminster Riot not a single
man or horse reached him ; and he was never informed
of the Government's forced decision to surrender.
And thus those half-trained boys and men laid
down their lives for England within a dozen miles of
Westminster, almost twelve hours after a weak-kneed,
panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the
people that England would surrender.
That, to my thinking, was the most burning feature
of our disgrace ; that, as an indication of our parlous
estate, is more terrible than Martin's " pivot " of the
tragic week.
197
XX
BLACK SATURDAY
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.
WORDSWOBTH.
IN the afternoon of Black Saturday, General von
Fiichter, the Commander-in-Chief of the German
Army in England, took up his quarters, with his staff,
in the residence of the German Ambassador to the
Court of St. James in Carlton House Terrace, and,
so men said, enjoyed the first sleep he had had for a
week. (The German Ambassador had handed in his
credentials, and been escorted out of England on the
previous Monday.)
Throughout the small hours of Saturday morning
I was at work near Romford as one of the volunteer
bearers attached to Constance Grey's nursing corps.
That is one reason why the memory of the north of
London massacre will never leave me. One may as-
sume that the German Army had no wish to kill
nurses, but, as evidence of the terrible character of
the onslaught on the poor defences of London, I may
recall the fact that three of our portable nursing
198
BLACK SATURDAY
shelters were blown to pieces ; while of Constance
Grey's nurses alone five were killed and fourteen were
badly wounded.
Myself, I had much to be thankful for, my only
wound being the ploughing of a little furrow over
the biceps of my right arm by a bullet that passed
out through the back of my coat. But a circum-
stance for which my gratitude was more deeply
moved was the fact that Constance Grey, despite a
number of wonderfully narrow escapes, was entirely
uninjured.
The actual entry of General von Fiichter and his
troops into London has been so often described that
nothing remains for me to say about that. Also, I
am unable to speak as an eye witness, since Constance
Grey and myself were among those who returned to
London, in the rear of the German troops, with the
ambulances. The enemy's line of communications
stretched now from the Wash to London, and between
Brentwood and London there were more Germans
than English. I believe the actual number of troops
which entered London behind General von Fiichter was
under forty-eight thousand ; but to the northward,
northeast, and northwest the huge force which really
invested the capital was spread in careful formation,
and amply provided with heavy artillery, then trained
upon central London from all such points as the
Hampstead heights.
Although a formal note of surrender had been con-
veyed to General von Fiichter at Romford, after the
annihilation of our entrenched troops, occasional shots
were fired upon the enemy as they entered London.
199
THE MESSAGE
Indeed, in the Whitechapel Road, one of the Gen-
eral's aides-de-camp, riding within a few yards of his
chief, was killed by a shot from the upper windows
of a provision shop. But the German reprisals were
sharp. It is said that fifty-seven lives paid the pen-
alty for the shooting of that aide-de-camp. Several
streets of houses in northeast London were burned.
By this time the Lord Mayor of London had been
notified that serious results would accrue if any
further opposition were offered to the German ac-
ceptance of London's surrender ; and proclamations
to that effect were posted everywhere. But the great
bulk of London's inhabitants were completely cowed
by hunger and terror. Practically, it may be said
that, throughout, the only resistance offered to the
Army of the invaders was that which ended so tragi-
cally in the trenches beyond Epping and Romford,
with the equally tragical defence of Colchester, and
some of the northern towns captured by the eighth
German Army Corps.
In London the people's demand from the first had
been for unconditional surrender. It was this demand
which had culminated in the Westminster Riot. The
populace was so entirely undisciplined, so completely
lacking in the sort of training which makes for self-
restraint, that even if the Government had been
possessed of an efficient striking force for defensive
purposes, the public would not have permitted its
proper utilization. The roar of German artillery
during Friday night and Saturday morning, with the
news of the awful massacre in the northern entrench-
200
BLACK SATURDAY
ments, had combined to extinguish the last vestige of
desire for resistance which remained in London.
Almost all the people with money had left the cap-
ital. Those remaining the poor, the refugees from
northward, irresponsibles, people without a stake of
any kind ; these desired but the one thing : food and
safety. The German Commander-in-Chief was wise.
He knew that if time had been allowed, resistance
would have been organized, even though the British
regular Army had, by continuous reductions in the
name of " economy," practically ceased to exist as a
striking force. And therefore time was the one thing
he had been most determined to deny England;.
It is said that fatigue killed more German soldiers
than fell to British bullets; and the fact may well
be believed when we consider the herculean task Gen-
eral von Fiichter had accomplished in one week. His
plan of campaign was to strike his hardest, and to
keep on striking his hardest, without pause, till he
had the British Government on its knees before him ;
till he had the British public maddened by sudden
fear, and the panic which blows of this sort must
bring to a people with no defensive organization,
and no disciplinary training cowed and crying for
quarter.
The German Commander has been called inhuman,
a monster, a creature without bowels. All that is
really of small importance. He was a soldier who
carried out orders. His orders were ruthless orders.
The instrument he used was a very perfect one. He
carried out his orders with the utmost precision and
thoroughness ; and his method was the surest, quick-
201
THE MESSAGE
est, and, perhaps, the only way of taking possession
of England.
At noon precisely, the Lord Mayor of London was
brought before the German Commander-in-Chief in
the audience chamber of the Mansion House, and
formally placed under arrest. A triple cordon of
sentries and two machine-gun parties were placed in
charge of the Bank of England, and quarters were
allotted for two German regiments in the immediate
vicinity. Two machine-guns were brought into posi-
tion in front of the Stock Exchange, and all avenues
leading from the heart of the City were occupied by
mixed details of cavalry and infantry, each party
having one machine-gun.
My acquaintance, Wardle, of the Sunday News,
was in the audience chamber of the Mansion House
at this time, and he says that he never saw a man look
more exhausted than General von Fiichter, who, ac-
cording to report, had not had an hour's sleep during
the week. But though the General's cheeks were
sunken, his chin unshaven, and his eyes blood-red, his
demeanour was that of an iron man stern, brusque,
taciturn, erect, and singularly immobile.
Food was served to this man of blood and iron in
the Mansion House, while the Lord Mayor's secretary
proceeded to Whitehall, with word to the effect that
the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in
England awaited the sword and formal surrender of
the British Commander, before proceeding to take
up quarters in which he would deal with peace nego-
tiations.
Forster's great work, " The Surrender," gives the
BLACK SATURDAY
finest description we have of the scene that followed.
The Field Marshal in command of the British forces
had that morning been sent for by a Cabinet Council
then being held in the Prime Minister's room at the
House of Commons. With nine members of his staff,
the white-haired Field Marshal rode slowly into the
City, in full uniform. His instructions were for un-
conditional surrender, and a request for the immedi-
ate consideration of the details of peace negotia-
tions.
The Field Marshal had once been the most popular
idol of the British people, whom he had served nobly
in a hundred fights. Of late years he himself had
been as completely disregarded, as the grave warn-
ings, the earnest appeals, which he had bravely con-
tinued to urge upon a neglectful people. The very
Government which now despatched him upon the hard-
est task of his whole career, the tendering of his
sword to his country's enemy, had for long treated
him with cold disfavour. The general public, in its
anti-national madness, had sneered at this great little
man, their one-time hero, as a Jingo crank.
(As an instance of the lengths to which the public
madness went in this matter, the curious will find in
the British Museum copies of at least one farcical
work of fiction written and published with consider-
able success, as burlesques of that very invasion which
had now occurred, of the possibility of which this
loyal servant in particular had so earnestly and so
unavailingly warned his countrymen.)
Now, the blow he had so often foreshadowed had
fallen ; the capital of the British Empire was actually
203
THE MESSAGE
in possession of an enemy ; and the British leader
knew himself for a Commander without an Army.
He had long since given his only son to the cause
of Britain's defence. The whole of his own strenuous
life had been devoted to the same cause. His declin-
ing years had known no ease by reason of his unceas-
ing and thankless striving to awaken his fellow coun-
trymen to a sense of their military responsibilities.
Now he felt that the end of all things had come for
him, in the carrying out of an order which snapped
his life's work in two, and flung it down at the feet of
England's almost unopposed conqueror.
The understanding Englishman has forgiven Gen-
eral von Fiichter much, by virtue of his treatment of
the noble old soldier, who with tear-blinded eyes and
twitching lips tendered him the surrender of the
almost non-existent British Army. No man ever
heard a speech from General von Fiichter, but the
remark with which he returned our Field Marshal's
sword to him will never be forgotten in England. He
said, in rather laboured English, with a stiff, low bow :
" Keep it, my lord. If your countrymen had not
forgotten how to recognize a great soldier, I could
never have demanded it of you."
And the man of iron saluted the heart-broken
Chief of the shattered British Army.
We prefer not to believe the report that this, the
German Commander's one act of gentleness and mag-
nanimity in England, was subsequently paid for by
the loss of a certain Imperial decoration. But, if the
story was true, then the decoration it concerned was
well lost.
204
BLACK SATURDAY
It was a grim, war-stained procession that followed
General von Fiichter when, between two and three
o'clock, he rode with his staff by way of Ludgate
Hill and the Strand to Carlton House Terrace. But
the cavalry rode with drawn sabres, the infantry
marched with fixed bayonets, and, though weariness
showed in every line of the men's faces, there was as
yet no sign of relaxed tension.
Throughout that evening and night the baggage
wagons rumbled through London, without cessation,
to the two main western encampments in Hyde Park.
The whole of Pall Mall and Park Lane were occupied
by German officers that night, few of the usual occu-
pants of the clubs in the one thoroughfare, or the
residences in the other, being then in London.
By four o'clock General von Fiichter's terms were
in the hands of the Government which had now com-
pleted its earning of the title of " The Destroyers."
The Chief Commissioner of Police and the principal
municipal authorities of greater London had all been
examined during the day at the House of Commons,
and were unanimous in their verdict that any delay in
the arrangement of peace and the resumption of
trade, ashore and afloat, could mean only revolution.
Whole streets of shops had been sacked and looted
already by hungry mobs, who gave no thought to the
invasion or to any other matter than the question of
food supply. A great, lowering crowd of hungry
men and women occupied Westminster Bridge and the
southern embankment (no German soldiers had been
seen south of the Thames ) waiting for the news of the
promised conclusion of peace terms.
205
THE MESSAGE
There is not wanting evidence that certain mem-
bers of the Government had already bitterly repented
of their suicidal retrenchment and anti-defensive atti-
tude in the past. But repentance had come too late.
The Government stood between a hungry, terrified
populace demanding peace and food, and a mighty
and victorious army whose commander, acting upon
the orders of his Government, offered peace at a ter-
rible price, or the absolute destruction of London.
For General von Fiichter's brief memorandum of
terms alluded threateningly to the fact that his heavy
artillery was so placed that he could blow the House
of Commons into the river in an hour.
At six o'clock the German terms were accepted, a
provisional declaration of peace was signed, and
public proclamations to that effect, embodying refer-
ence to the deadly perils which would be incurred by
those taking part in any kind of street disorder, were
issued to the public. As to the nature of the German
terms, it must be admitted that they were as pitiless
as the German tactics throughout the invasion, and
as surely designed to accomplish their end and object.
Berlin had not forgotten the wonderful recuperative
powers which enabled France to rise so swiftly from
out of the ashes of 1870. Britain was to be far more
effectually crippled.
The money indemnity demanded by General von
Fiichter was the largest ever known: one thousand
million pounds sterling. But it must be remembered
that the enemy already held the Bank of England.
One hundred millions, or securities representing that
amount, were to be handed over within twenty-four
206
BLACK SATURDAY
hours. The remaining nine hundred millions were to
be paid in nine annual instalments of one hundred
millions each, the first of which must be paid within
three months. Until the last payment was made,
German troops were to occupy Glasgow, Cardiff,
Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, Yarmouth, Har-
wich, Hull, and Newcastle. The Transvaal was to be
ceded to the Boers under a German Protectorate.
Britain was to withdraw all pretensions regarding
Egypt and Morocco, and to cede to Germany, Gibral-
tar, Malta, Ceylon, and British West Africa.
It is not necessary for me to quote the few further
details of the most exacting demands a victor ever
made upon a defeated enemy. There can be no doubt
that, in the disastrous circumstances they had been so
largely instrumental in bringing about, " The Des-
troyers " had no choice, no alternative from their
acceptance of these crushing terms.
And thus it was that not at the end of a long
and hard-fought war, as the result of vast misfor-
tunes or overwhelming valour on the enemy's side, but
simply as the result of the condition of utter and
lamentable defencelessness into which a truckling
Government and an undisciplined, blindly selfish peo-
ple had allowed England to lapse the greatest,
wealthiest Power in civilization was brought to its
knees in the incredibly short space of one week, by
the sudden but scientifically devised onslaught of a
single ambitious nation, ruled by a monarch whose
lack of scruples was more than balanced by his
strength of purpose.
SOT
XXI
ENGLAND ASLEEP
Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,
And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,
Leaving it richer for the growth of truth. LOWELL.
ENERAL VON FUCHTER and his splendidly
V_T trained troops were not the only people in
England for whom the mere fatigue of that week was
something not easily to be forgotten. My impression
of its last three days is that they brought no period
of rest for any one. I know that there were as many
people in the streets by night as by day. The act of
going within doors or sitting down, seemed in some
way to be a kind of cowardice, a species of shirking,
or disloyalty.
I remember Constance Grey assuring me that she
had lain down for an hour on Thursday. I can say
with certainty that we were both of us on our feet
from that time until after the terms of the surrender
were made known on Saturday evening. I can also
say that no thought of this matter of physical weari-
ness occurred to me until that period of Saturday
evening soon after seven o'clock it was when
the proclamations were posted up in Whitehall, and
the special issues of the newspapers containing the
peace announcements began to be hawked.
208
ENGLAND ASLEEP
An issue of the Standard, a single sheet, with broad
black borders, was the first press announcement to
reach the public; and it contained a grave, closely
reasoned address from the most famous statesman of
the Opposition, urging upon the public the need vital
of exercising the utmost cautiousness and self-re-
straint.
" England has been stricken to the earth," said this
dignified statement. " Her condition is critical. If
the injury sustained is not to prove mortal, the
utmost circumspection is required at this moment.
The immediate duty of every loyal subject is quietly
to concentrate his energies for the time upon the
restoration of normal conditions. In that way only
can our suffering country be given that breathing
space which is the first step toward recuperation.
For my part, I can conceive of no better, quicker
method for the individual of serving this end than for
him to make the speediest possible return to the pur-
suit of his ordinary avocation in life. It is to be
hoped that, bearing in mind our urgent need, all em-
ployers of labour will do their utmost to provide
immediate occupation for their work-people. It is
not in the tragic catastrophe of the past week, but in
the ordeal of this moment, of the coming days, that
the real test of England's endurance lies. Never be-
fore was her need so great ; never before has Nelson's
demand had so real and intimate a message for each
and every one of us. I pray God the response may
ring true. ' England expects that every man will
do his duty ! ' "
I must not omit my tribute to those responsible for
209
the salient fact that this important issue of the jour-
nal whose unwavering Imperialism had been scoffed
at in the mad times before the Invasion, was not sold,
but distributed. Employment was found for hun-
dreds of hungry men, women, and children in its free
distribution; their wage being the thing they most
desired: bread, with soup, which, as I learned that
night, was prepared in huge coppers in the foundry
of the printing works.
I was with Constance Grey in Trafalgar Square
when the news of the accepted terms of peace reached
us. We had just secured admission into Charing
Cross Hospital not without considerable difficulty,
for its wards were crowded for two wounded
nurses from Epping. Together we read the news,
and when the end was reached it seemed to me that
the light of life and energy passed suddenly out of
my companion. She seemed to suffer some bodily
change and loss, to be bereft of her spring and erect-
ness.
" Ah, well," she said, " I am very tired, Dick ;
and, do you know, it occurs to me I have had nothing
to eat since yesterday afternoon. I wonder can we
get away from these men, anywhere? "
The streets between Victoria and Hyde Park were
lined by German cavalry men, who sat motionless on
their chargers, erect and soldierly, but, in many cases,
fast asleep.
We began to walk eastward, looking for some place
in which we could rest and eat. But every place
seemed to be closed.
210
ENGLAND ASLEEP
" How long have you been on your feet? " said
Constance, as we passed the Law Courts.
" Only since Thursday evening," I said. " I had
a long rest in that cart, you remember the one I
brought the lint and bandages in."
Just then we passed a tailor's shop-window, and,
in a long, narrow strip of mirror I caught a full-
length reflection of myself. I positively turned
swiftly to see who could have cast that reflection.
Four days without shaving and without a change of
collar ; two days without even washing my hands or
face ; four days without undressing, and eight hours'
work beside the North London entrenchments
these experiences had made a wild-looking savage of
me, and, until that moment, I had never thought of
my appearance.
Smoke, earth, and blood had worked their will upon
me. My left hand, from which two fingers were miss-
ing, was swathed in blackened bandages. My right
coat-sleeve had been cut off by a good-natured fellow
who had bandaged the flesh wound in my arm to stop
its bleeding. My eyes glinted dully in a black face,
with curious white fringes round them, where their
moisture had penetrated my skin of smoked dirt. And
here was I walking beside Constance Grey !
Then I realized, for the first time, that Constance
herself bore many traces of these last few terrible
days. In some mysterious fashion her face and
collar seemed to have escaped scot free ; but her dress
was torn, ragged, and stained ; and the intense weari-
ness of her expression was something I found it hard
to bear.
211
THE MESSAGE
Just then we met Wardle of the Sunday News, and
he told us of the bread and soup distribution in the
Standard office. Something warned me that Con-
stance had reached the limit of her endurance, and,
in another moment, she had reeled against me and
almost fallen. I took her in my arms, and Wardle
walked beside me, up a flight of stairs and into the
office of the great newspaper. There I walked into
the first room I saw the sanctum of some mana-
gerial bashaw, for aught I knew and placed Con-
stance comfortably in a huge easy chair of green
leather.
Wardle brought some water, for Constance was in
a fainting state still; but I hurried him off again to
look for bread and soup. Meantime I lowered Con-
stance to the floor, having just remembered that in
such a case the head should be kept low. Her face
was positively deathly lips, cheeks, all alike gray-
white, save for the purple hollows under both eyes.
One moment I was taking stock of these things, as
a doctor might; the next I was on my knees and
kissing the nerveless hand at her side, all worn and
bruised and stained as it was from her ceaseless striv-
ings of the past week. I knew then that, for me,
though I should live a hundred years and Constance
should never deign to speak to me again, there was
but one woman in the world.
I am afraid Wardle found me at the same employ ;
but, though I remember vaguely resenting his fresh
linen and normally smart appearance, he was a good
fellow, and knew when to seem blind. All he said was :
"Here's the soup!"
"I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVELESS HAXD :
ENGLAND ASLEEP .
He had brought a small washhand basin full to the
brim, and a loaf of warm, new bread. As the steam
of the hot soup reached me, I realized that I was a
very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides.
It may have been the steam of the soup that rallied
Constance. I know that within two minutes I was
feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It is a
wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouth-
fuls of hot soup upon an exhausted woman, whose
exhaustion is due as much to lack of food as need of
rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though
cracked, was clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxu-
rious little cabinet near the chair one felt was dedi-
cated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we had
invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink
soup from as a cup, but requires more careful manip-
ulation when hot. If the side of the tumbler becomes
soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new
bread.
Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he
was neatly dressed ; but he found a certain vicarious
pleasure, I think, in watching Constance and myself
at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used
the seat of the green chair as a table a strange
meal, in strange surroundings ; but a better I never
had, before or since. There was a physical gratifica-
tion, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the
colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face;
a singularly beautiful process of nature I thought it.
Presently the door of the room opened with a jerk,
and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in.
" H'm ! " he said brusquely. " Beg pardon ! "
THE MESSAGE
And he was gone. I learned afterwards that the
room belonged to him, and that he came direct from
a conference of newspaper pundits called together at
Westminster by the Home Secretary. I do not know
where he took refuge, but as for us we went on with
our soup and bread till repletion overtook us, as it
quickly does after long fasts, and renewed strength
brought sighs of contentment.
" Wardle," I remember saying to my journalistic
friend, with absurd earnestness, " have you anything
to smoke? "
" I haven't a thing but my pipe," he said. " But
wait a moment ! There used to be yes. Look
here!"
There was a drawer in a side-table near the great
writing-table, and one division of it was half -full of
cigarettes, the other of Upman's " Torpedoes."
" I will repay thee," I murmured irreverently, as
I helped myself to one of each, and lit the cigarette,
having obtained permission from Constance. It was
the first tobacco I had tasted for forty-eight hours,
and I was a very regular smoker. I had not known
my need till then, a fact which will tell much to
smokers.
" And now ? " said Constance. Her eyelids were
drooping heavily.
" Now I am going to take you straight out to
South Kensington, and you are going to rest."
I had never used quite that tone to Constance
before. I think, till now, hers had been the guiding
and directing part. Yet her influence had never been
stronger upon me than at that moment.
ENGLAND ASLEEP
" Well, of course, there are no cabs or omnibuses,"
said Wardle, " but a man told me the Underground
was running trains at six o'clock."
We had a long, long wait at Blackfriars' station,
but a train came eventually, and we reached the flat
in South Kensington as a neighbouring church clock
struck ten. The journey was curious and impressive
from first to last. Fleet Street had been very much
alive still when we left it; and we saw long files of
baggage wagons rumbling along between Prussian
lancers. But Blackfriars was deserted, the ticket
collector slept soundly on his box; the streets in
South Kensington were silent as the grave.
London slept that night for the first time in a week.
I learned afterwards how the long lines of German
sentries in Pall Mall, Park Lane, and elsewhere slept
solidly at their posts ; how the Metropolitan police
slept on their beats; how thousands of men, women,
and children slept in the streets of South London,
whither they had fled panic-stricken that morning.
Conquerors and conquered together, the whole vast
city slept that night as never perhaps before or since.
After a week of terror, of effort, of despair, and of
debauchery, the sorely stricken capital of the British
Empire lay that night like a city of the dead. Eng-
land and her invaders were worn out.
At the flat we found Mrs. Van Homrey placidly
knitting.
" Well, young folk," she said cheerily ; " I've had
all the news, and there's nothing to be said ; and
there's bath and bed waiting for you, Conny. I shall
bring you something hot in your room."
15
THE MESSAGE
Ah, the kindly comfort of that motherly soul's
words ! It was but a few hours since her " Conny "
had stood by my side on ground that was literally
blood-soaked. Since the previous night we had both
seen Death in his most terrible guise; Death swing-
ing his dripping scythe through scores of lives at a
stroke. We had been in England's riven heart
throughout the day of England's bitterest humilia-
tion ; and Mrs. Van Homrey had bed and bath wait-
ing, with " something hot " for Constance to take in
her room.
" But, Aunty, if you could have seen
" Dear child, I know it all." She patted her niece's
shoulder, and I noticed the rings and the shiny soft-
ness of her fingers. She saw at a glance
indeed, had seen beforehand, in anticipation the
wrought-up, exhausted condition Constance had
reached. " I know it all, dear," she said soothingly.
" But the time has come for rest now. Nothing else
is any good till that is done with. Come, child. God
will send better days for England. First, we must
rest."
So Constance turned to leave the room.
" And you ? " she said to me.
" I will see to him. You run along, my dear,"
said her aunt. So Constance took my hand.
" Good night, Dick. You have been very good and
kind, and patient. Good night ! "
There was no spare bedroom in that little flat, but
the dear old lady had actually made up a bed for me
on a couch in the drawing-room, and before she re-
tired for the night she made me free of the bathroom,
216
and supplied me with towels and such like matters,
and gave me cake and cocoa ; a delicious repast I
thought it. And so, while crushed and beaten Lon-
don lay sleeping off its exhaustion, I slept under Con-
stance Grey's roof, full of gratitude, and of a kind
of new hope and gladness, very foreign, one would
have said, to my gruesome experiences of the past
forty-eight hours.
England, the old victorious island kingdom, be-
queathed to us by Raleigh, Drake, Nelson ; the nine-
teenth-century England of triumphant commercial-
ism; England till then inviolate for a thousand
years ; rich and powerful beyond all other lands ;
broken now under the invader's heel that ancient
England slept.
217
PART n
THE AWAKENING
Exoriare aliquis de nostris ex ossibus ultor. VIRGIL.
THE FIRST DAYS
The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Without Thee, what is all the morning's wealth ?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear Mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
WORDSWORTH.
T T is safe to say that England's exhausted sleep on
-*- the night of Black Saturday marked the end of
an era in British history. It was followed by a curi-
ous, quiescent half-consciousness during Sunday.
For the greater part of that day I should suppose
that more than half London's populace continued
its sleep.
One of the first things I realized after Monday
morning's awakening in my Bloomsbury lodging was
that I must find wages and work speedily, since I
possessed no more than a very few pounds. As a fact,
upon that and several subsequent days I found plenty
of work, if nothing noticeable in the way of wages.
I was second in command of one of the food and
labour bureaux which Constance Grey helped to or-
ganize, and all the workers in these bureaux were
volunteers.
THE MESSAGE
Another of my first impressions after the crisis was
a sense of my actual remoteness, in normal circum-
stances, from Constance. Her father had left Con-
stance a quite sufficient income. Mrs. Van Homrey
was in her own right comfortably well-to-do. But,
despite the exiguous nature of my own resources, it
was not the money question which impressed me most
in this connection, but rather the fact that, while my
only acquaintances in London were of a more or less
discreditable sort, Constance seemed to have friends
everywhere, a.nd these in almost every case people of
standing and importance. Her army friends were apt
to be generals, her political friends ex-Ministers, her
journalistic friends editors, and so forth. And I
But you have seen my record up to this point.
Nobody could possibly want Constance so much as
I did, I thought. But an astonishing number of
persons of infinitely more consequence than myself
seemed to delight to honour her, to obtain her co-
operation. And I loved her. There was no possi-
bility of my mistaking the fact. I had been used to
debate with myself regarding Sylvia Wheeler.
There was no room for debate where my feeling for
Constance was concerned. The hour of her break-
down in Fleet Street on Black Saturday had taught
me so much.
In the face of my circumstances just then, the idea
of making any definite disclosure of my feelings to
Constance seemed impracticable. Yet there was one
intimate passage between us during that week, the
nature of which I cannot precisely define. I know I
conveyed some hint to Constance of my feeling toward
222
THE FIRST DAYS
her, and I was made vaguely conscious that anything
like a declaration of love would have seemed shocking
to her at that time. She held that, at such a junc-
ture, no merely personal interests ought to be allowed
to weigh greatly with any one. The country's call
upon its subjects was all-absorbing in the eyes of
this " one little bit of a girl from South Africa," as
Crondall had called her. It made me feel ashamed to
realize how far short I fell (even after the shared ex-
periences culminating in Black Saturday) of her
personal standard of patriotism. Even now, my
standing in her eyes, my immediate personal needs,
loomed nearer, larger in my mind than England's
fate. I admitted as much with some shamefacedness,
and Constance said:
" Ah, well, Dick, I suspect that is a natural part of
life lived entirely in England, the England of the
past. There was so little to arouse the other part in
one. All the surrounding influences were against it.
My life has been different. Once one has lived, in
one's own home, through a native rising, for instance,
purely personal interests never again seem quite so
absorbing. The elemental things had been so long
shut out of English life. Why, do you know ? "
And she began to tell me of one of the schemes in
which she was interested; in connection with which
I learned of a cable message she had received that
day telling that John Crondall was then on his way
to England.
The least forgiving critics of " The Destroyers "
have admitted that they did their best and worked
well during those strange weeks which came immedi-
223
THE MESSAGE
ately after the invasion. One reason of this was that
party feeling in politics had been scotched. The
House of Commons met as one party. There was no
longer any real Opposition, unless one counted a small
section of rabid anti-Britishers, who were incapable
of learning a lesson ; and even they carped but feebly,
while the rest of the House devoted its united ener-
gies to the conduct of the country's shattered business
with the single aim of restoring normal conditions.
Throughout the country two things were tacitly ad-
mitted. That the Government in power must pres-
ently answer for its doings to the public before ceas-
ing to be a Government; and that the present was
no time for such business as that of a general election.
And so we had the spectacle of a Government which
had entirely lost the confidence of the electors, a
Government anathematized from the Orkneys to
Land's End, carrying on its work with a unison and
a complete freedom from opposition such as had not
been known before, even by the biggest majority or
the most popular Administration which had ever sat
at Westminster. For the first time, and by no effort
of our own, we obtained the rule of an Imperial Par-
liament devoted to no other end than the nation's
welfare. The House of Commons witnessed many
novel spectacles at that time such as consultations
between the leading members of the Government and
the Opposition. Most of its members learned many
valuable lessons in those first weeks of the new regime.
It is to be supposed that the Surrender Riot had
taught them something.
It must also be admitted that General, or, as he
now was, General Baron von Fiichter, accomplished
some fine work during this same period. It has been
said that he was but consulting the safety of his
Imperial master's armed forces; but credit may
safely be given the General for the discretion and
despatch he used in distributing the huge body of
troops at his command, without hitch or friction, to
the various centres which it was his plan to occupy.
His was a hand of iron, but he used it to good pur-
pose; and the few errors of his own men were pun-
ished with an even more crushing severity than he
showed where British offences were concerned.
The task of garrisoning those English ports with
German soldiers was no light or easy one; no task
for a light or gentle hand. In carrying out this
undertaking a very little weakness, a very small dis-
play of indecision, might easily have meant an ap-
palling amount of bloodshed. As it was, the whole
business was completed in a wonderfully short while,
and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and
municipal administration of these centres was to re-
main English; but supreme authority was vested in
the officer commanding the German forces in each
place, and the heads of such departments as the postal
and the police, were German. No kind of public
gathering or demonstration was permissible in these
towns, unless under the auspices of the German of-
ficer in command, who in each case was given the rank
of Governor of the town.
We had learned by this time that the Channel
Fleet had not been entirely swept away. But a por-
tion of it was destroyed, and the remaining ships had
225
THE MESSAGE
been entrapped. It was strategy which had kept
British ships from our coasts during the fatal week
of the invasion. " The Destroyers " were responsi-
ble for our weak-kneed concessions to Berlin some
years earlier, in the matter of wireless telegraphy.
In the face of urgent recommendations to the con-
trary from experts, the Government had yielded to
German pressure in the matter of making our own
system interchangeable, and had even boasted of their
diplomacy in thus ingratiating themselves with Ger-
many. As a consequence, the enemy had been able
to convey messages purporting to come from the
British Admiralty and ordering British commanders
to keep out of home waters.
That these messages should have been conveyed in
secret code form was a mystery which subsequent
investigations failed to solve. Some one had played
traitor. But the history of the invasion has shown
us that we had very many traitors among us in those
days ; and there came a time when the British public
showed clearly that it was weary of Commissions of
Inquiry. Where so many, if not indeed all of us,
were at fault, where the penalty was so crushing, it
was felt that there were other and more appropriate
openings for official energy and public interest than
the mere apportioning of blame and punishment,
however well deserved.
The issue of what was called the " Invasion
Budget " was Parliament's first important act, after
the dispersal of the German forces in England, and
the termination of the Government distribution of
food supplies. The alterations of customs tariff were
226
THE FIRST DAYS
not particularly notable. The House had agreed that
revenue was the objective to be considered, and fiscal
adjustments with reference to commerce were post-
poned for the time. The great change was in the
income-tax. The minimum income to be taxed was
f 100 instead of, as formerly, 160. The scale ran
like this: sixpence in the pound upon incomes of
between 100 and 150, ninepence from that to
200, one shilling from that to 250, one and three-
pence from that to 500, one and sixpence from that
to 1,000, two shillings upon all incomes of between
1,000 and 5,000, and four shillings in the pound
upon all incomes of over 5,000.
It was on the day following that of the Invasion
Budget issue that I received a letter from my sister
Lucy, in Davenham Minster, telling me of my
mother's serious illness, and asking me to come to
her at once. And so, after a hurried visit to the
South Kensington flat to explain my absence to Con-
stance, I turned my back upon London, for the first
time in a year, and journeyed down into Dorset.
n
ANCIENT LIGHTS
Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Kegions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway.
COWPER.
IN the afternoon of a glorious summer's day, ex-
actly three weeks after leaving London, I stood
beside the newly filled grave of my mother in the
moss-grown old churchyard of Davenham Minster.
My dear mother was not one of those whose end
was hastened by the shock of England's disaster.
Doctor Wardle gave us little hope of her recovery
from the first. The immediate cause of death was
pneumonia ; but I gathered that my mother had come
to the end of her store of vitality, and, it may be, of
desire for life. I have sometimes thought that her
complete freedom from those domestic cares of house-
keeping, which had seemed to be the very source and
fountainhead of continuous worry for her, may
actually have robbed my mother of much of her hold
upon life. In these last days I had been almost con-
228
ANCIENT LIGHTS
tinuously beside her, and I know that she relinquished
her life without one sigh that spelt regret.
Standing there at the edge of her grave in the
hoary churchyard of the Minster, I was conscious of
the loss of the last tie that bound me to the shelter
of youth: the cared- for, irresponsible division of a
man's life. The England of my youth was no more.
Now, in the death of my mother, it seemed as if I had
stepped out of one generation into another. I had
entered a new generation, and was alone in it.
I was to sleep at my sister's house that night, but
I had no wish to go there now. Doctor Wardle's
forced gravity, his cheerful condolences, rather wor-
ried me. So it happened that I set out to walk from
the churchyard, and presently found myself upon the
winding upland road that led out of the rich Daven-
ham valley, over the Ridgeway, and into the hilly
Tarn Regis country, where I was born.
I drank a mug of cider in the quaint little beer-
house kept by Gammer Joy in Tarn Regis, and read
again the doggerel her grandfather had painted on
its sign-board, in which the traveller was advised of
the various uses of liquor, taken in moderation, and
the evil effects of its abuse. Taken wisely, I remember,
it was suggested that liquor proved the best of lubri-
cants for the wheels of life. Mrs. Joy looked just
as old and just as active and rosy as she had always
looked for so long as I could remember; and she
hospitably insisted upon my eating a large slab of
her dough cake with my cider a very excellent
comestible it was.
The old dame's mood was cheerfully pessimistic
229
THE MESSAGE
that is to say, she was garrulous, and spoke cheerily
of generally downward tendencies. Thus, the new
rector, by her way of it, was of a decadent modern
type, full of newfangled " Papish " notions as to
church vestments and early services, and neglectful
of traditional responsibilities connected with soup and
coal and medical comforts. Cider was no longer what
it used to be, I gathered, since the big brewers took
it in hand, and spoiled the trade of those who had
hand-presses. As for farming, Gammer Joy held
that it was not near so good a trade for master or
man with land at fifteen shillings the acre, as much
of it was thereabouts, as it had been with rents up to
two or three pounds, and food twice as dear as
now.
" But there, Master Dick," said the old lady ; " I
suppose we be all Germans now so they do tell me,
however ; an' if we be no better nor furriners here in
Darset, why I doan't know as't matters gertly wha'
cwomes to us at all. But I will say things wor dif-
ferent in your f eyther's time, Master Dick that
they was. Ah doan't believe he'd ha' put up wi' this
German business for a minute, that ah doan't."
I gathered that the new rector was an earnest
young man and a hard worker; but, evidently, those
of Gammer Joy's generation preferred my father's
aloofness in conjunction with his regular material
dispensations, and his habit of leaving folk severely
to themselves, so far as their thoughts and feelings
were concerned.
The cottagers with whom I talked that summer's
evening cherished a monumental ignorance regarding
230
ANCIENT LIGHTS
the real significance of the events which had shaken
England to its very roots since I had last seen Tarn
Regis. Gammer Joy's view seemed to be fairly typ-
ical. We had become German ; England belonged to
Germany ; the Radicals had sold us to the Kaiser
and so forth. But no German soldiers had been seen
in Dorset. The whole thing was shadowy, academic,
a political business ; suitable enough for the discus-
sion of Londoners, no doubt, but, after all, of small
bearing upon questions of real and intimate interest,
such as the harvest, the weather, and the rate of
wages.
" Sims queer, too, that us should be born again like,
and become Germans," said one man to me ; " but ah
doan't know as it meakes much odds to the loike o'
we; though ah hev heerd as how Farmer Jupp be
thinkin' o' gettin' shut o' his shartharn bull that won
the prize to Davenham, an' doin' wi' fower men an' a
b'y, in place o' sevin. Well, o' course, us has to keep
movin' wi' the times, as sayin' is ; an' 'tis trew them
uplan' pastures o' Farmer Jupp's they do be mos'
onusual poor an' leery, as you med say."
Twilight already held the land in its grave embrace
when I made my way along Abbott's Lane (my father
had devoted months to the task of tracing the origin
of that name) and began the ascent of Barebarrow,
by crossing which diagonally one reaches the Daven-
ham turnpike from Tarn Regis, a shorter route by
nearly a mile than that of the road past the mill and
over the bridge. And so, presently, my feet were
treading turf which had probably been turf before
the Christian era. Smooth and vast against the sky-
231
THE MESSAGE
line, Barebarrow lay above me, like a mammoth at
rest.
On its far side was our Tarn Regis giant, a famous
figure cut in the turf, and clearly visible from the
tower of Davenham Minster. Long ago, in my earli-
est childhood, village worthies had given me the story
of this figure how once upon a time a giant came
and slew all the Tarn Regis flocks for his breakfast.
Then he lay down to sleep behind Barebarrow, and
while he slept the enraged shepherds and work-folk
bound him with a thousand cart-ropes, and slew him
with a thousand scythes and forks and other homely
implements. And then, that posterity might know
his fearsome bulk, they cut out the turf all round his
form, and eke the outline of the club beside him, and
left the figure there to commemorate their valour and
the loss of their flocks. Some three hundred feet long
it was, I think, with a club the length of a tall pine-
tree. In any case, the Tarn Regis lad who would
excel in feats of strength had but to spend the night
of Midsummer's Eve in the crook of the giant's arm
(as some one or two did every year), and other
youths of the countryside could never stand a chance
with him.
I paused on the ledge below the barrow beside a
ruined shepherd's hut, and recalled the fact that here
my father had unearthed sundry fragments of stone
and pieces of implements which the Dorchester
Museum curator had welcomed as very early British
relics. They went back, I remembered, to long before
the Roman period; to days possibly more remote
than those of ancient Barebarrow himself. If you
232
ANCIENT LIGHTS
refer to a good map you will find this spot surrounded
by such indications of immemorial antiquity as
"Tumuli," "British Village," and the like. The
Roman encampment on the other side of Davenham
Minster was modernity itself, I thought, compared
with this ancient haunt of the neolithic forerunners of
the early Briton ; this resting-place of men whose
doings were a half -forgotten story many centuries
before the birth of Julius Caesar.
I sat down on the grassy ledge and looked out
across the lichen-covered roofs and squat, rugged
church tower of Tarn Regis; and pictures rose in
my mind, pictures to some extent inspired, perhaps,
by scraps I had read of learned essays written by my
father. He had loved this ancient ground; he had
been used to finger the earth hereabouts as a man
might finger his mistress's hair. I do not know what
period my twilit fancy happened upon, but it was
assuredly a later one than that of Barebarrow, for
I saw shaggy warriors with huge pointless swords,
their hilts decorated with the teeth of wild beasts
a Bronze Age vision, no doubt. I saw rude chariots
of war, with murderous scythe-blades on their wheels
and, in a flash then, the figure of Boadicea : that
valiant mother of our race, erect and fearless in her
chariot
Kegions Caesar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway !
" Thy posterity shall sway ! " If you repeat the
lines to yourself you may see the outline of my vision.
There at the foot of Barebarrow I saw that Queen
of ancient Britons at the head of her wild, shaggy
233
THE MESSAGE
legions. " The Roman Army can never withstand
the shouts and clamour of so many thousands, far
less their shock and fury," said the Queen. I saw her
lead her valiant horde upon Colchester, and for me
the ancient rudeness of it all was shot through and
through with glimpses of the scientific sacking of
Colchester, as I had read of it but a few weeks ago.
I saw the advance of the Roman Governor ; the awful
slaughter of the British ; the end of the brave Queen
who could not brook defeat: the most heart-stirring
episode in English history.
** Thy posterity shall sway ! " I recalled the
solemn splendour of another great Queen's passing
that which I had seen with my own eyes while still
a lad at Rugby: the stately gathering of the great
ships at Spithead ; the end of Victoria the Good. No
more than a step it seemed from my vision of the un-
conquerable Boadicea. But to that other onslaught
upon Colchester to General von Fiichter's slaugh-
ter of women and children and unarmed men in
streets of houses whose ashes must be warm yet O
Lord, how far! I thought. Could it really be that
a thousand years of inviolability had been broken,
ended, in those few wild days ; ended for ever ?
Lights twinkled now among the nestling houses of
the little place where I was born. They made me
think of torches, the clash of arms, the spacious
mediaeval days when Davenham Minster supported a
great monastery, whose lordly abbot owned the land
Tarn Regis stood upon.
And then the little lights grew misty and dim in
my eyes as glimpses came of my own early days ; of
234
ANCIENT LIGHTS
play on that very ridge-side where I sat now, where
I had then romantically sworn friendship with George
Stairs on the eve of my departure for Elstree School,
and his leaving with his father for Canada. How
had I kept my vow? Where was George Stairs now?
There was not a foot of that countryside we had not
roamed together. My eyes pricked as I looked and
listened. Exactly so, I thought, the sheep-bells had
sounded below Barebarrow when I had lain listening
to them in that low-pitched back bedroom of the Rec-
tory which I had been proud to hear called " Dick's
Room," after my first experience of sleeping alone.
Then for a space my mind was blank as the dark
valley beyond the village until thoughts and pic-
tures of recent happenings began to oust the gentler
memories, and I lived over again the mad, wild, tragic
week which culminated in the massacre of the North
London trenches. But in the light of my previous
musings I saw these happenings differently, more
personally, than in the actual experience of them. It
seemed now that not my country only, but myself,
had been struck down and humbled to the dust by the
soldiers of the Kaiser. I saw the broad fair faces of
the German cavalry as they had sat their horse in
Whitehall on the evening of Black Saturday. I
heard again the clank of their arms, the barking of
guttural orders. Could it be that they had mastered
England? that for nine long years we were to be
encircled by their garrisons? Nine years of helotry !
A sudden coolness in the air reminded me of the
lateness of the hour, and I rose and began to cross
Barebarrow.
But this ancient land was British in every blade of
its grass, I thought root and crop, hill and dale,
above and beneath, no single sod of it but was British.
Surely nothing could alter that. Nine years of hel-
otry ! I heard again the confused din of the West-
minster Riot; the frantic crowd's insistent demand
for surrender, for unconditional surrender. And
now the nation's word was pledged. Our heads were
bowed for nine years long.
Suddenly, then, as I descended upon the turnpike,
a quite new thought came to me. The invasion had
overridden all law, all custom, all understandings.
The invasion was an act of sheer lawless brutality.
No surrender could bind a people to submission in
the face of such an outrage as that. The Germans
must be driven out; the British people must rise and
cast them out, and overthrow for ever their insolent
dominion. But too many of the English people were
like myself ! Well, they must learn ; we must all
learn ; every able-bodied man must learn ; for a blow
had to be struck that should free England for ever.
The country must be awakened to realization of that
need. We owed so much to the brave ones who gave
us England; so much could be demanded of us by
those that came after. The thing had got to be.
I walked fast, I remember, and singing through
my head as I entered Davenham Minster, long after
my sister's supper hour, were the lines to which I had
never till then paid any sort of heed :
Regions Caesar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway!
236
m
THE RETURN TO LONDON
Oh ! 'tis easy
To beget great deeds ; but in the rearing of them
The threading in cold blood each mean detail,
And furze brake of half-pertinent circumstance
There lies the self-denial. CHARLES KINGSLBY.
I SPENT but one other day in Dorset after my
walk out to Tarn Regis, and then took train in
the morning for London.
I believe I have said before that Doctor Wardle,
my sister's husband, was prosperous and popular.
The fact made it natural for me to accept my
mother's disposition of her tiny property, which, in
a couple of sentences, she had bequeathed solely to
me. My sister had no need of the hundred and fifty
pounds a year that was derived from my mother's
little capital, which had been invested in Canadian
securities and was unaffected by England's losses.
Thus I was now possessed of means sufficient to pro-
vide me with the actual necessities of life; and,
though I had not thought of it before, realization of
this came to me while I attended to the winding up
of my mother's small affairs, bringing with it a cer-
tain sense of comfort and security.
It was with a strongly hopeful feeling, a sense
237
THE MESSAGE
almost of elation, that I stepped from the train at
Waterloo. My quiet days and nights in Dorset had
taught me something; and, particularly, I had
gained much, in conviction and in hope, from the eve-
ning spent by Barebarrow. I cannot say that I had
any definite plans, but I was awake to a genuine sense
of duty to my native land, and that was as strange
a thing for me as for a great majority of my fellow
countrymen. I was convinced that a great task
awaited us all, and I determined upon the perform-
ance of my part in it. I suppose I trusted that Lon-
don would show me the particular form that my eif ort
should take. Meanwhile, as a convert, the missionary
feeling was strong in me.
I might have made shift to afford better quarters,
perhaps, but it was to my original lodging in Blooms-
bury that I drove from Waterloo. Some few belong-
ings of mine were there, and I entertained a friendly
sort of feeling for my good-hearted but slatternly
landlady, and for poor, overworked Bessie, with her
broad, generally smutty face, and lingering remains
of a Dorset accent. The part of London with which
I was familiar had resumed its normal aspect now,
and people were going about their ordinary avoca-
tions very much as though England never had been
invaded.
But in the north and east of the capital were streets
of burned and blackened houses, and the Epping and
Romford districts were one wilderness of ruins, and
of graves ; while across East Anglia, from the coast
to the Thames, the trail of the invaders was as the
track of a locust plague, but more terrible by reason
238
THE RETURN TO LONDON
of its blood-soaked trenches, its innumerable shallow
graves, and its charred remains of once prosperous
towns. Hundreds of ruined farmers and small land-
holders were working as navvies at bridge and road
and railway repairs.
A great many people had been ruined during those
few nightmare days of the invasion, and every man
in England was burdened now with a scale of taxa-
tion never before known in the country. But business
had resumed its sway, and London looked very much
as ever. The need there was for a general making
good, from London to the Wash, provided a great
deal of employment, and the Government had taken
such steps as it could to make credit easy. But Con-
sols were still as low as sixty-eight; prices had not
yet fallen to the normal level, and money was every-
where scarce.
In the middle afternoon I set out for South Ken-
sington to see Constance Grey, to whom I had written
only once during my absence, and then only to tell
her of my mother's death. She had replied by tele-
graph, a message of warm and friendly sympathy.
I knew well that she was always busy, and, like most
moderns who have written professionally, I suppose
we were both bad correspondents. Now there was
much of which I wanted to talk with Constance, and
it was with a feeling of sharp disappointment that I
learned from the servant at the flat that she was not
at home. Mrs. Van Homrey was in, however, and in
a few moments I was with her in the little drawing-
room where I had passed the night of London's ex-
hausted sleep on Black Saturday.
239
THE MESSAGE
" Yes, you have just missed my niece," said Mrs.
Van Homrey, after a kindly reference to the strip
of crepe on my arm. " She has gone in to Victoria
Street to a i conference of the powers ' of John Cron-
dall's convening. Oh, didn't you know he was here
again? Yes, he arrived last week, and, as usual, is
up to his neck in affairs already, and Constance with
him. I verily believe that child has discovered the
secret of perpetual motion."
At first mention of John Crondall's name my heart
had warmed to its recollection of the man, and a
pleasurable thought of meeting him again. And
immediately then the warm feeling had been pene-
trated by a vague sense of disquiet, when Mrs. Van
Homrey spoke of his affairs " and Constance with
him." But I was not then conscious of the meaning
of my momentary discomfort, though, both then and
afterwards, I read emphasis and meaning into Mrs.
Van Homrey's coupling of the two names. I asked
what the " conference " was about, but gathered that
Mrs. Van Homrey was not very fully informed.
" I know they are to meet these young Canadian
preachers who are so tremendously praised by the
Standard What are their names, again ? Tcha !
How treacherous my memory grows ! You know the
men I mean. John Crondall met them the day after
their arrival last week, and is enthusiastic about
them."
I felt very much out of the movement. During
the few days immediately preceding my mother's
death, and since then, I had not even seen a news-
paper, and, being unusually preoccupied, not only
240
THE RETURN TO LONDON
over the events of my stay at Davenham Minster,
but by developments in my own thoughts, I seemed
to have lost touch with current affairs.
" And what does John Crondall think of the out-
look?" I asked.
" Well, I think his fear is that people in the coun-
try outside East Anglia, of course may fail to
realize all that the invasion has meant and will mean ;
and that Londoners and townsfolk generally may slip
back into absorption in business and in pleasure as
soon as they can afford that again, and forget the
fact that England is practically under Germany's
heel still."
" The taxes will hardly allow them to do that,
surely," I said.
" Well, I don't know. The English are a wonder-
ful people. The invasion was so swift and sudden;
the opposition to it was so comparatively trifling;
surrender and peace came so soon, that really I don't
know but what John is right. He generally is. You
must remember that millions of the people have not
seen a German soldier. They have had no discipline
yet. Even here in London, as soon as the people
spoke decidedly, peace followed. They did not have
to strike a blow. They did not feel a blow. They
were not with you and Conny, remember, at those
awful trenches. Anyhow, John thinks the danger is
lest they forget again, and regard the whole tragic
business as a new proof of England's ability to
* muddle through ? anything, without any assistance
from them. Of course, England's wealth is still
great, and her recuperative powers are wonderful;
241
THE MESSAGE
but John Crondall holds that, in spite of that, sub-
mission to nine years of German occupation and
German tribute-paying will mean the end of the
British Empire."
" And he feels that the people must be stirred into
seeing that and acting on it ? " I said, recalling my
own thoughts during the night walk from Bare-
barrow.
" Yes, I suppose that is his view. But, now I come
to think of it, why should you waste your time in
talking to an old woman who can only give you
echoes? It is only half an hour since Conny started.
Why not hurry on to John Crondall's place, and join
them there? He has often spoken of you, Conny
tells me."
This seemed to me too good a suggestion to neg-
lect, and ten minutes later I was on my way to St.
James's Park by underground railway. I bought an
evening paper on my way, and read an announcement
to the effect that General Baron von Fiichter, after
returning to Portsmouth from his visit to Berlin, had
definitely decided that Portsmouth and Devonport
could no longer remain British naval bases, and that
no British sailors or soldiers in uniform could in
future be admitted into any of the towns in England
now occupied by Germany.
242
IV
THE CONFERENCE
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side ;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or
blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right ;
And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
A FEW seconds after his servant had shown me
into the dining-room of John Crondall's flat,
the man himself entered to me with a rush, as his
manner was, both hands outstretched to welcome me.
" Good man ! " he said. " I've had fine news of
you from Constance Grey, and now you're here to
confirm it. Splendid ! "
And' then, with sudden gravity, and a glance at my
coat sleeve : " I heard of your loss. I know what it
means. I lost my mother when I was in Port Arthur,
and I know London looked different because of it
when I got back. It's a big wrench; one we've all
got to face."
" Yes. I think my mother died without regret ;
she was very tired."
There was a pause, and then I said:
" But I may have chosen my time badly, to-day.
243
THE MESSAGE
Mrs. Van Homrey said you had a conference. If
you "
" Tut, tut, man ! Don't talk nonsense. I was just
going to say how well you'd timed things. I don't
know about a conference, but Constance is here, and
Varley, and Sir Herbert Tate he took on the secre-
taryship of the Army League, you know, after Gil-
bert chucked it and Winchester. You know Win-
chester, the Australian rough-rider, who did such fine
work with his bushman corps in the South African
war and let me see ! And Forbes Thompson,
the great rifle clubman, you know ; and the Canadian
preachers splendid fellows, by Jove ! Simply
splendid they are, I can tell you. I look for great
things from those two. Stairs is English, of course,
but he's been nearly all his life in British Columbia
and the Northwest, and he's got all the eternal youth,
the fire and grit and enthusiasm of the Canadian,
with somehow, something else as well good. His
chum, Reynolds, is an out-and-out Canadian, born in
Toronto of Canadian parents. Gad, there's solid tim-
ber in that chap, I can tell you. But, look here!
Come right in, and take a hand. I'm awfully glad
you came. I heard all about The Mass and that;
but, bless me, I can see in your eye that that's all
past and done with for ever. By the way, I heard
last night that your Mr. Clement Blaine had got a
job after his own heart, in the pay of the Germans
at Chatham interpreter in the passport office, or
some such a thing. What a man ! Well, come along
in, my dear chap, and give us the benefit of your
wisdom."
244
THE CONFERENCE
We were leaving the room now.
" I knew you'd like Constance," he said. " She's
the real thing, isn't she? "
I despised myself for the hint of chill his words
brought me. What right had I to suspect or resent?
And in any case John Crondall spoke in his custom-
ary frank way, with never a hint of afterthought.
"Yes," I said; "she's splendid."
" And such a head-piece, my boy. By Jove, she has
a better head for business than Here we are,
then."
Constance Grey was naturally the first to greet me
in the big room where John Crondall did his work and
met his friends. There was welcome in her beautiful
eyes, but, obviously, Constance was very much pre-
occupied. Then I was presented to Sir Morell
Strachey, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson,
and then to the Canadian parson, the Rev. George
Stairs. I had paid no attention to the name when
Crondall had mentioned it in the other room. Now,
as he named the parson again, I looked into the man's
face, and
" Mordan ? Why, not Dick Mordan, of Tarn
Regis?" said the parson.
" By gad ! George Stairs ! I was thinking of
you on the side of Barebarrow the night before
last."
" And I was thinking of you, Dicky Mordan, yes-
terday afternoon, when I met the present rector of
Tarn Regis at a friend's house."
It was a long strong handshake that we exchanged.
Sixteen years on the young side of thirty is a con-
245
THE MESSAGE
siderable stretch of time, and all that had passed
since I had last seen my old Tarn Regis playmate.
Stairs introduced me to his friend, Reynolds, and
I learned the curious fact that this comrade and chum
of my old friend's was also a parson, but not of
Stairs's church. Reynolds had qualified at a theo-
logical training college in Ontario, and had been
Congregational minister in the parish of which Stairs
had been vicar for the last three years.
There was a big table in the middle of the room,
littered over with papers and writing materials.
About this table we presently all found seats.
" Now look here, my friends," said John Crondall,
" this is no time for ceremoniousness, apologies, and
the rest of it, and I'm not going to indulge in any.
No doubt we've all of us got special interests of our
own, but there's one we all share; and it comes first
with all of us, I think. We all want the same thing
for England and the Empire, and we all want to do
what we can to help. It's because of that I dismiss
the ceremonies, and don't say anything about the
fear of boring you, and all that. I don't even make
exceptions of you, Stairs, or you, Reynolds. I tell
you quite frankly I want to poke and pry into your
plans. I want to know all about 'em. I've sense
enough to see that you wield a big influence. I am
certain I have your sympathy in my aims. And I
want to find out how far I can make your aims help
my aims. Afl I know is that you have addressed
three meetings, each bigger than the last; and that
your preaching is the real right thing. Now I want
246
THE CONFERENCE
you to tell us as much as you will about your plans.
You know we are all friends here."
Stairs looked at Reynolds, and Reynolds nodded at
Stairs.
" Well," said the latter, smiling, first at Crondall,
and then at me, " our plans are simplicity itself. In
Canada we have not risen yet to the cultivation of
much diplomacy. We don't understand anything of
your high politics, and we don't believe in roundabout
methods. For instance, I suppose here in England
you don't find parsons of one denomination working
in partnership much with parsons of another denomi-
nation. Well, now, when I took over from my prede-
cessor at Kooteray, I found my friend Reynolds do-
ing a fine work there, among the farmers and miners,
as Congregational minister. He was doing precisely
the work I wanted to do; but there was only one of
him. Was I to fight shy of him, or set to work, as it
were, in opposition to him ? Well, anyhow, that didn't
seem to me the way. We had our own places of wor-
ship ; but, for the rest, both desiring the one thing
the Christian living of the folk in our district
we worked absolutely shoulder to shoulder. There
were a few worthy folk who objected; but when
Reynolds and I came to talk it over, we decided that
these had as much religion as was good for them
already, and that we could afford rather to ignore
them, if by joint working we could rope in the folk
who had next to none at all You must forgive
my slang, Miss Grey."
Constance smiled across at the parson.
" You forget, Mr. Stairs, I grew up on the veld,"
she said.
" Ah, to be sure ; I suppose one is as close to the
earth and the realities there as in Canada."
" Quite," said Crondall. " And, anyhow, we are
not doing any apologies to-day ; so please go ahead."
" Well," continued George Stairs, " we often talked
over Old Country affairs, Reynolds and I. Reynolds
had only spent three months over here in his life, but
I fancy I learned more from him than he from me."
" That's a mistake, of course," said Reynolds.
" He had the facts and the knowledge. I merely
supplied a fresh point of view home-grown Cana-
dian."
" Ah, well, we found ourselves very much in agree-
ment, anyhow, about Home affairs and about the
position of the Anglican Church in Canada ; the need
there is for less exclusiveness and more direct meth-
ods. The idea of coming Home and preaching
through England, a kind of pilgrimage that was
entirely Reynolds's own. I would have come with
him gladly, when we had our district in good going
order out there. But, you see, I had no money. My
friend had a little. Then my father died. He had
been ailing for a long time, and I verily think the
news of the invasion broke his heart. He died in the
same week that it reached him, and left his two
farms, with some small house property, to me.
" My father's death meant for me a considerable
break. The news from England shocked me inex-
pressibly. It was such a terrible realization of the
very fears that Reynolds and myself had so often dis-
248
cussed the climax and penalty of England's mad
disregard of duty ; of every other consideration ex-
cept pleasure, easy living, comfort, and money-mak-
ing."
" This is the pivot of the whole business, that duty
question," interposed Crondall. " It was your han-
dling of that on Tuesday that burdened you with my
acquaintance. I listened to that, and I said, * Mr.
George Stairs and you have got to meet, John Cron-
dall ! ' But I didn't mean to interrupt."
" Well, as I say, I found myself rather at a part-
ing of the ways, and then came my good friend here,
and he said, ' What about these farms and houses of
yours, Stairs? They represent an income. What
are you going to do about it? ' And well, you see,
that settled it. We just packed our bags and came
over."
" And now that you are here? " said John Cron-
dall.
" Well, you heard what we had to say the other
afternoon ? "
" I did every word of it."
" Well, that's what we are here for. Our aim is to
take that message to every man and woman in this
country ; and we believe God will give us zest and
strength enough to bring it home to them to make
them feel the truth of it. Your aim, naturally, is
political and patriotic. I don't think you can have
any warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself.
But our part, as you see, is another one, and outside
politics. We believe the folk at Home have lost their
bearings; their compasses want adjusting. I say
249
THE MESSAGE
here what I should not venture to admit to a less sym-
pathetic and indulgent audience: Reynolds and my-
self aim at arousing, by God's will, the sleeping sense
of duty in our kinsmen here at Home. We have no
elaborate system, no finesse, no complicated issues
to consider. Our message is simply : * You have
forgotten Duty ; and the Christian life is not possible
while Duty remains forgotten or ignored.' Our pur-
pose is just to give the message; to prove it; make
it real; make it felt."
Crondall had been looking straight at the speaker
while he listened, his face resting between his two
hands, his elbows planted squarely on the table. Now
he seemed to pounce down upon Stairs's last words.
" And yet you say your part is another one than
ours. But why not the same? Why not the very
essence and soul of our part, Stairs?"
"Gad he's right!" said Sir Herbert Tate, in
an undertone. Reynolds leaned forward in his chair,
his lean, keen face alight.
" Why not the very soul of our part, Stairs the
essential first step toward our end? Our part is to
urge a certain specific duty on them a duty we
reckon urgent and vital to the nation. But we can't
do that unless we, or you, can first do your part
rousing them to the sense of duty Duty itself.
Man, but your part is the foundation of our part
foundation, walls, roof, corner-stone, complete! We
only give the structure a name. Why, I give you
my word, Stairs, that that address of yours on Tues-
day was the finest piece of patriotic exhortation I
ever listened to."
250
THE CONFERENCE
" But it's very kind of you to say so ; but I
never mentioned King or country."
" Exactly ! You gave them the root of the whole
matter. You cleared a way into their hearts and
heads which is open now for news of King and coun-
try. It's as though I had to collect some money for
an orphanage from a people who'd never heard of
charity. Before I see the people you teach 'em the
meaning and beauty of charity wake the charita-
ble sense in them. You needn't bother mentioning
orphanages ; but if I come along in your rear, my
chances of collecting the money are a deal rosier than
if you hadn't been there first what?"
" I see I see," said Stairs, slowly.
" Mr. Crondall, you ought to have been a Cana-
dian," said Reynolds, in his dry way. His use of
the " Mr.," even to a man who had no hesitation in
calling him plain " Reynolds," was just one of the
tiny points of distinction between himself and
Stairs.
" Oh, Canada has taught me something ; and so
have South Africa and India ; and so have you and
Stairs, with your mission, or pilgrimage, or what-
ever it is your Message."
" Well," said Stairs, " it seems to me your view of
our pilgrimage is a very kindly, and perhaps flat-
tering one ; and as I have said, your aims as a citizen
of the Empire and a lover of the Old Country could
not have warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and
myself ; but "
" Mind, I'm not trying to turn your religious
teaching to any ignoble purpose," said Crondall,
251
THE MESSAGE
quickly. " I am not asking you to introduce a single
new word or thought into it for my sake."
" That's so," said Reynolds, his eye upon Stairs.
" Quite so, quite so," said Stairs. " And, of
course, I am with you in all you hope for; but you
know, Crondall, religion is perhaps a rather different
matter to a parson from what it is to you. Forgive
me if I put it clumsily, but "
And now, greatly daring, I ventured upon an inter-
ruption, speaking upon impulse, without considera-
tion, and hearing my voice as though it were some-
thing outside myself.
" George Stairs," I said and I fancy the
thoughts of both of us went back sixteen years
" what was it you thought about the Congregational
minister when you took over your post at Kooteray?
How did you decide to treat him? Did you ever re-
gret the partnership? "
" Now if that isn't straight out Western fashion ! "
murmured Reynolds. Constance beamed at me from
her place beside John Crondall.
" I leave it at that," said our host.
" A palpable bull's-eye," said Forbes Thompson.
I hardly needed George Stairs's friendly clap on
the shoulder, nor the assurance of his:
" You are right, Dick. You have shown me my
way in three words."
" Good," said Reynolds. " Well, now I don't mind
saying what I wouldn't have said before, that among
the notes we drew up nearly three years ago "
" You drew up, my friend," said Stairs.
" Among the notes we drew up, I say, on this ques-
252
THE CONFERENCE
tion of neglected duty, were details as to the citizen's
obligations regarding the defence of his home and
native land, with special reference to the callous neg-
lect of Lord Roberts's campaign of warning and ex-
hortation. Now, Stairs, you know as well as I do,
you wrote with your own hand the passage about the
Englishman's sphere of duty being as much wider
than his country as Greater Britain was wider than
Great Britain. You know you did."
" Oh, you can count me in, all right, Reynolds ;
you know I'm not one for half -measures."
" Well, now, my friends, I believe I see daylight.
By joining hands I really believe we are going to
accomplish something for England." Crondall looked
round the table at the faces of his friends. " We are
all agreed, I know, that the present danger is the
danger Kipling tried to warn us about years and
years ago."
" ' Lest we forget ! ' : ' quoted Sir Herbert quietly.
" Exactly. There are so many in England who
have neither seen nor felt anything of the blow we
have had."
And here I told them something of what I had seen
and heard in Dorset; how remote and unreal the
whole thing was to folk there.
" That's it, exactly," continued Crondall. " That's
one difficulty which has just got to be overcome.
Another is the danger that, among those who did see
and feel something of it, here in London, and even in
East Anglia, the habit of apathy in national matters,
and the calls of business and pleasure may mean for-
getting, indifference the old fatal neglect. You
253
THE MESSAGE
see, we must remember that, crushing as the blow was,
it did not actually reach so very many people. It
did not force them to get up and fight for their lives.
It was all over so soon. Directly they cried out,
* The Destroyers ' answered with surrender, and so
helped to strengthen the fatal delusion they had
cherished so long, that everything is a matter of
pounds, shillings, and pence."
" ' They'll never go for England, because Eng-
land's got the dibs,' " quoted Forbes Thompson, with
a nod of assent.
" Yes, yes. ' Make alliances, and leave me to my
business ! ' One knows it all so well. But, mind you,
even to the blindest of them, the invasion has meant
something."
" And the income-tax will mean something to 'em,
too," said Sir Morell Strachey.
" Yes. But the English purse is deep, and the
Englishman has long years of money-spinning free-
dom from discipline behind him. Still, here is this
brutal fact of the invasion. Here we are actually
condemned to nine years of life inside a circle of Ger-
man encampments on English soil, with a hundred
millions a year of tribute to pay for the right to live
in our own England. Now my notion is that the
lesson must not be lost. The teaching of the thing
must be forced home. It must be burnt into these
happy-go-lucky countrymen of ours if Stairs and
Reynolds are to achieve their end, or we ours."
" Our aim is to awake the sense of duty which
seems to us to have become atrophied, even among the
professedly religious," said Stairs.
THE CONFERENCE
" And ours," said Crondall, sharp as steel, " is to
ram home your teaching, and to show them that the
nearest duty to their hand is their duty to the State,
to the Race, to their children the duty of freeing
England and throwing over German dominion."
" To render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's," said Reynolds. And Stairs nodded agree-
ment.
" Now, by my way of it, Stairs and Reynolds must
succeed before we can succeed," said Crondall.
" That is my view, and because that is so, you can
both look to me, up till the last breath in me, for any
kind of support I can give you for any kind of
support at all. But that's not all. Where you sow,
I mean to reap. We both want substantially the
same harvest mine is part of yours. I know I can
count on you all. You, Stairs, and you, Reynolds,
are going to carry your Message through England.
I propose to follow in your wake with mine. You
rouse them to the sense of duty ; I show them their
duty. You make them ready to do their duty; I
show it them. I'll have a lecturer. I'll get pictures.
They shall feel the invasion, and know what the Ger-
man occupation means. You shall convert them, and
I'll enlist them."
" Enlist them ! By Jove ! that's an idea," said
Forbes Thompson. " A patriotic league, a league of
defenders, a nation in arms."
"The Liberators!"
" Ah ! Yes, the Liberators."
"Or the Patriots, simply?"
" I would enrol them just as citizens," said Cron-
255
THE MESSAGE
dall. " By that time they should have learned the
meaning of the word."
"Yes, by Jove! it is good enough just 'The
Citizens,' " said Sir Morell Strachey.
And then a servant came in with a message for
Forbes Thompson, and we realized that dinner-time
had come and almost gone. But we were in no mood
for separating just then, and so every one welcomed
John Crondall's invitation to dine with him at a
neighbouring hotel.
256
MY OWN PART
Free men freely work ;
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.
E. B. BROWNING.
CONSTANCE GREY and myself were the last of
V_^/ John Crondall's guests to leave him on that
evening of the conference. As soon as we three were
alone, Constance turned to Crondall, and said:
" You must expect to have me among your camp
followers if I find Aunt Mary can stand the travel-
ling. I dare say there will be little things I can do."
" Things you can do ! By George, I should think
so ! " said Crondall. " I shall look to you to capture
the women ; and if we get the women, it will surprise
me if we don't get the men as well. Besides, don't
you fancy I have forgotten your prowess as a speaker
in Cape Town and Pretoria. You remember that
meeting of your father's, when you saved him from
the wrath of Vrow Bischoff? Why, of course, I
reckon on you. We'll have special women's meet-
ings."
" And where do I come in ? " I asked, with an
assumed lightness of tone which was far from express-
ing my feeling.
257
THE MESSAGE
" Yes," said Crondall, eying me thoughtfully ;
" I've been thinking of that."
As he said that, I had a swift vision of myself and
my record, as both must have appeared to a man like
Crondall, whose whole life had been spent in patriotic
effort. The vision was a good corrective for the
unworthy shafts of jealousy for that no doubt
they were which had come to me with John Cron-
dall's references to Constance. I was admitted cor-
dially into the confidencec of these people from whom,
on my record, I scarcely deserved common courtesy.
It was with a distinctly chastened mind that I gave
them both some outline of the thoughts and resolu-
tions which had come to me during my evening beside
Barebarrow, overlooking sleepy little Tarn Regis.
" It's a kind of national telepathy," said Crondall.
" God send it's at work in other counties besides
Dorset."
" It had need be," I told them ; " for all those that
I spoke to in Dorset accepted the German occupation
like a thing as absolutely outside their purview as
the movements of the planets."
" Yes, they want a lot of stirring, I know ; but I
believe we shall stir 'em all right. But about your
part in the campaign. Of course, I recognize that
every one has to earn his living, just as much now as
before. But yet I know you'd like to be in this thing,
Dick Mordan, and I believe you can help it a lot.
What I thought of was this: I shall want a secre-
tary, and want him very badly. He will be the man
who will do half my work. On the other hand, I
can't pay him much, for every cent of my income will
258
MY OWN PART
be wanted in the campaign, and a good deal more
besides. The thing is, would you tackle it, for the
sake of the cause, for a couple of hundred a year?
Of course, I should stand all running expenses.
What do you think? It's not much of an offer, but
it would keep us all together? "
Constance looked expectantly at me, and I realized
with a sudden thrill the uses of even such small means
as I now possessed.
" Well, no," I said ; " I couldn't agree to that."
The pupils of John Crondall's eyes contracted
sharply, and a pained, wondering look crept into the
face I loved, the vivid, expressive face of Constance
Grey. " But what I would put my whole heart and
soul into, would be working as your secretary for the
sake of the cause, as long as you could stand the
running expense, and and longer."
I think the next minute was the happiest I had ever
known. I dare say it seems a small enough matter,
but it was the only thing of the kind I had ever been
able to do. These friends of mine had always given
so much to our country's cause. I had felt myself
so far beneath them in this. Now, as John Cron-
dall's strong hand came down on my shoulder, and
Constance's bright eyes shone upon me in affectionate
approval, my heart swelled within me, with something
of the glad pride which should be the possession of
every man, as it indubitably is of every true citizen
and patriot.
" You see," I explained deprecatingly, as Crondall
swayed my shoulder affectionately to and fro in his
firm grip ; " I have become a sort of a minor capital-
259
THE MESSAGE
ist. I have about a hundred and fifty a year coming
in, and so I'm as free as I am glad to work with you,
and there'll be two hundred more for the cam-
paign, you see."
" God bless you, old chap ! You and Constance and
I, we'll move mountains even the great mountain
of apathy between us. Sir Herbert offers a thou-
sand pounds toward expenses, and Forbes Thompson
and Varley are ready to speak for us anywhere we
like, and Winchester has a pal who he says will work
wonders as a kind of advance agent. I'm pretty sure
of Government help, too or Opposition help ;
they'll be governing before Christmas, you'll find.
Now, we all meet here again the day after to-morrow.
We three will see each other to-morrow, I expect.
I must write a stack of letters before the midnight
post."
"Well, can I lend a hand?" I asked.
" No, not to-night, Mr. Secretary Dick, thank
you ! But it's late. Will you take Constance home ?
I'll get my fellow to whistle up a cab."
Ten minutes earh'er I should have been chilled by
his implied guardianship of Constance; but now I
had that within which warmed me through and
through: the most effectual kind of protection
against chill. So all was settled, and we left John
Crondall to his letters. And, driving out to South
Kensington, we talked over our hopes, Constance and
I, as partners in one cause.
" This is the beginning of everything for me, Con-
stance," I said, when we parted in the hall below her
flat.
260
MY OWN PART
" It is going to be the beginning of very much for
a good many," she said, as she gave me her hand.
" I wonder if you know how much for me ! "
" I think so. I am tremendously glad about it all."
But she did not know, could not know, just how
much it meant to me.
" Good night, my patriotic Muse ! " I said.
" Good night, Mr. Secretary Dick ! "
And so we parted on the night of my return to
London.
261
VI
PEEPAEATIONS
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power, with the
Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
Follow after follow after for the harvest is sown :
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own !
RUDYARD KIPLING.
NEVER before had I known days so full, so com-
pact of effort and achievement, as were those of
the week following the conference in John Crondall's
rooms. I could well appreciate Winchester's state-
ment when he said that : " John Crondall is known
through three Continents as a glutton for work."
Our little circle represented Canada, South Africa,
Australia, and the Mother Country ; and, while I
admit that my old friend, George Stairs, and his
Canadian-born partner, Reynolds, could give points
to most people in the matter of unwearying energy,
yet I am proud to report that the member of our
circle who, so to say, worked us all to a standstill was
John Crondall, an Englishman born and bred. I
said as much in the presence of them all, and when
262
PREPARATIONS
my verdict was generally endorsed, John Crondall
qualified it with the remark:
" Well, I can only say that pretty nearly all I
know about work I learned in the Colonies."
And I learned later on to realize the justice of this
qualification. Colonial life does teach directness and
concentration. Action of any sort in England was
at that time hedged about by innumerable complica-
tions and cross issues and formalities, many of
which we have won clear from since then. Perhaps
it was the strength of our Colonial support which
set the pace of our procedure. Whatever the cause,
I know I never worked harder, or accomplished more ;
and I had never been so happy.
I think John Crondall must have interviewed from
two to three hundred prominent politicians and mem-
bers of the official world during that week. I have
heard it said by men who should know, that the money
Crondall spent in cable messages to the Colonies that
week was the price of the first Imperial Parliament
ever assembled in Westminster Hall. I use these
words in their true sense, their modern sense, of
course. Nominally, the House of Commons had long
been the " Imperial " Parliament.
I know that week's work established The Citizens
as an already powerful organization, with a long list
of names famous in history among its members, with
a substantial banking account, and with volunteer
agents in every great centre in the kingdom. The
motto and watchword of The Citizens, as engraved
upon a little bronze medal of membership, was:
263
THE MESSAGE
"For God; our Race; and Duty." The oath of
enrolment said:
" I do hereby undertake and promise to do
my duty to God, to our Race, and to the British
Empire to the utmost limit of my ability, without
fear and without compromise, so help me God ! "
John Crondall interviewed the editors of most of
the leading London newspapers during that week,
and thereby earned a discreet measure of journalistic
support for his campaign. There was a great need
of discretion here, for our papers were carefully
studied in Berlin, as well as by the German Generals
commanding the various English towns now occupied
by the Kaiser's troops. It was, of course, most im-
portant that no friction should be caused at this
stage.
But it was with regard to the preaching pilgrim-
age of the two Canadian parsons that Crondall's
friends of the Press rendered us the greatest possible
service. Here no particular reticence was called for,
and the Press could be, and was, unreservedly helpful
and generous. In estimating the marvellous achieve-
ments of the two preachers, I do not think enough
weight has been attached to the great services ren-
dered to their mission by such journals as the great
London daily which published each morning a
column headed, " The New Evangel," and, indeed, by
all the newspapers both in London and the prov-
inces.
We were not directly aiming, during that first
week, at enrolling members. No recruiting had been
done. Yet when, at the end of the week, a meeting
264
PREPARATIONS
of the executive committee was held at the West-
minster Palace Hotel, the founder, John Crondall,
was able to submit a list of close upon six hundred
sworn members of The Citizens; and, of these, I sup-
pose fully five hundred were men of high standing
in the world of politics, the Services, commerce, and
the professions. Among them were three dukes,
twenty-three peers, a Field Marshal, six newspaper
proprietors, eleven editors, seven of the wealthiest
men in England, and ninety-eight prominent Mem-
bers of Parliament. And, as I say, no systematic re-
cruiting had been done.
At that meeting of the executive a great deal of
important business was transacted. John Crondall
was able to announce a credit balance of ten thousand
pounds, with powers to overdraw under guarantee at
the Bank of England. A simple code of membership
rules and objects was drawn up for publication, and
a short code of secret rules was formed, by which
every sworn member was to be bound. These rules
stipulated for implicit obedience to the decision and
orders of the executive, and by these every member
was bound to take a certain course of rifle drill, and
to respond immediately to any call that should be
made for military service within the British Isles
during a period of twelve months from the date of
enrolment. John Crondall announced that there was
every hope of The Citizens obtaining from the Gov-
ernment a grant of one service rifle and one hundred
rounds of ammunition for every member who could
pass a simple medical examination.
" We may not actually secure this grant until after
265
THE MESSAGE
the general election," Crondall explained ; " but it
can be regarded as a certain asset."
It was decided that, officially, there should be no
connection between the Canadian preachers, as every
one called them, and the propaganda of The Citizens.
But it was also privately agreed that steps should be
taken to follow the Canadians throughout their pil-
grimage with lectures and addresses, and meetings at
which members could be enrolled upon the roster of
The Citizens, including volunteer instructors in rifle
drill. My friend Stairs attended this meeting with
Reynolds, and, after discussion, it was agreed that,
for the present, they should not visit the towns occu-
pied by the Germans.
" The people there have their lesson before them
every day and all day long," said John Crondall.
" The folk we want to reach are those who have not
yet learned their lesson. My advice is to attack
London first. Enlist London on your side, and on
that go to the provinces."
There was a good deal of discussion over this, and
finally an offer John Crondall made was accepted by
Stairs and Reynolds, and our meeting was brought to
a close. What Crondall said was this :
" To-day is Monday. There is still a great deal of
detail to be attended to. Officially, there must be no
connection between Stairs and Reynolds and The
Citizens. Actually, we know the connection is vital.
Give me the rest of this week for arrangements, and
I promise that we shall all gain by it. I will not
appear in the matter, and I will see you each evening
266
PREPARATIONS
for consultation. Your pilgrimage shall begin on
Sunday, and ours within a day or so of that."
Then followed another week of tense effort. Stairs
and Reynolds both addressed minor gatherings dur-
ing the week, and met John Crondall every evening
for consultation. On Wednesday the principal Im-
perialistic newspaper in London appeared with a long
leading article and three columns of descriptive expo-
sition of " The New Evangel." On the same day
the papers published despatches telling of the de-
parture from their various homes of the Premiers,
and two specially elected representatives of all the
British Colonies, who were coming to England for
an Imperial Conference at Westminster. The Gov-
ernment's resignation was expected within the month,
and writs for the election were to be issued immedi-
ately afterwards.
On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning the
newspapers of London alone published one hundred
and thirteen columns of matter regarding the mes-
sage and the pilgrimage of the Rev. George Stairs
and the Rev. Arthur J. Reynolds. During the latter
part of the week all London was agog over the Cana-
dian preachers. As yet, very little had appeared in
print regarding The Citizens.
On Sunday morning at three o'clock John Crondall
went into his bedroom to sleep, and I slept in the
room he had set aside for me in his flat too tired
out to undress. Even Crondall's iron frame was
weary that night, and he admitted to me before re-
tiring from a table at which we had kept three type-
267
THE MESSAGE
writers busy till long after midnight, that he had
reached his limit and must rest.
" I couldn't stand another hour of it unless it
were necessary, you know," was his way of putting
it.
By my persuasion he kept his bed during a good
slice of Sunday morning, and lunched with me at
Constance Grey's flat. He always said that Mrs. Van
Homrey was the most restful tonic London could
supply to any man. I went to the morning service
at Westminster Abbey that day with Constance, and
listened to a magnificent sermon from the Bishop of
London, whose text was drawn from the sixth chapter
of Exodus : " And I will take you to me for a people,
and I will be to you a God."
The Bishop struck a strong note of hopefulness,
but there was also warning and exhortation in his dis-
course. He spoke of sons of our race who had gone
into far countries, and, carrying our Faith and tra-
ditions with them, had preserved these and wrought
them into a finer fabric than the original from which
they were drawn. And now, when a great affliction
had come upon the people of England, their sons of
the Greater Britain oversea were holding out kindly
hands of friendship and support. But it was not
alone in the material sense that we should do well to
avail ourselves of the support offered us from the out-
side places. These wandering children of the Old
Land had cherished among them a strong and simple
godliness, a devout habit of Christian morality, from
which we might well draw spiritual sustenance.
" You have all heard of the Canadian preachers,
268
PREPARATIONS
and I hope you will all learn a good deal more of
their Message this very afternoon at the Albert Hall,
where I am to have the honour of presiding over a
meeting which will be addressed by these Christian
workers from across the sea."
We found John Crondall a giant refreshed after
his long sleep.
" I definitely promise you a seat this afternoon,
Mrs. Van Homrey," he said, as we all sat down to
lunch in the South Kensington flat, " but that's as
much as I can promise. You and I will have to keep
our feet, Dick, and you will have to share Lady Tate's
seat, Constance. If every ticket-holder turns up this
afternoon, there won't be a single vacant seat in the
whole of that great hall."
" You earned your Sunday morning in, John,"
said Mrs. Van Homrey. " Is the Prime Minister
coming? "
" No, he has failed me at the last, but half the
members of the last Government will be there, and I
have promises from prominent representatives of
every religious denomination in England. There will
be sixty military officers above captain's rank, in
uniform, and forty-eight naval officers in uniform.
There will be many scores of bluejackets and private
soldiers, a hundred training-ship lads, fifty of the
Legion of Frontiersmen, and a number of volunteers
all in full uniform. There will be a tremendous num-
ber of society people, but the mass will be leavened,
and I should say one-half the people will be middle-
class folk. For to-night, no tickets have been issued.
The attendance will depend to some extent on the
269
THE MESSAGE
success of this afternoon, but, to judge from the
newspapers and the talk one hears, I should say it
would be enormous."
Just before we left the flat Crondall told us a
secret.
" You know they have a volunteer choir of fifty
voices? " he said. " It was Stairs's idea, and he has
carried it out alone. The choir consists entirely of
bluejackets, soldiers, volunteers, Red Cross nurses,
and boys from the Army bands."
270
VII
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God I
O Duty ! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove ;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe ;
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity
WORDSWORTH'S Ode to Duty.
I HAVE always been glad that I was able to attend
that first great service of the Canadian preachers ;
and so, I think, has every one else who was there.
Other services of theirs may have been more notable
in certain respects indeed, I know they were ; but
this one was the beginning, the first wave in a great
tide. And I am glad that I was there to see that first
grand wave rise upon the rock of British apathy.
I have said something of the audience, but a book
might well be devoted to its description, and, again,
a sentence may serve. It was a representative Eng-
lish gathering, in that it embraced a member of the
Royal Family, a little group of old men and women
from an asylum for the indigent, and members of
every grade of society that comes between. Also, it
271
THE MESSAGE
was a very large gathering even for the Albert
Hall.
It should be remembered that not many weeks prior
to this Sunday afternoon, the people of London,
maddened by hunger, fear, and bewildered panic, had
stormed Westminster to enforce their demand for
surrender, and had seen Von Fiichter with his blood-
stained legions take possession of the capital of the
British Empire. Fifty Londoners had been cut down,
almost in as many seconds, within two miles of the
Mansion House. In one terrible week London had
passed through an age of terror and humiliation, the
end of which had been purchased in panic and dis-
order by means of a greater humiliation than any.
Now England had to pay the bill. Some, in the
pursuit of business and pleasure, were already for-
getting; but the majority among the great concourse
of Londoners who sat waiting in the Albert Hall that
afternoon, clothed in their Sunday best, were still
shrewdly conscious of the terrible severity of the blow
which had fallen upon England.
Having found Constance her half -seat with Lady
Tate, I stood beside one of the gangways below the
platform, which lead to the dressing-rooms and other
offices. Beside me was a table for Press representa-
tives. There, with their pencils, I noted Campbell,
of the Daily Gazette, and other men I knew, including
Carew, for the Standard, who had an assistant with
him. He told me that somewhere in the hall his
paper had a special descriptive writer as well.
Looking up and down that vast building, from
dome to amphitheatre, I experienced, as it were vicari-
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
ously, something of the nervousness of stage fright.
Londoners were not simple prairie folk, I thought.
How should my friend George Stairs hold that multi-
tude? Two plain men from Western Canada, accus-
tomed to minister to farmers and miners, what could
they say to engage and hold these serried thousands
of Londoners, the most blase people in England? I
had never heard either of the preachers speak in
public, but I looked out over that assemblage, and
I was horribly afraid for my friends. A Church of
England clergyman and a Nonconformist minister
from Canada, and I told myself they had never had so
much as an elocution lesson between them!
And then the Bishop of London appeared on the
crowded platform, followed by George Stairs and
Arthur Reynolds ; and a dead silence descended upon
the hall. In the forefront of the platform was a
plain table with a chair at either end of it, and a
larger one in the middle. Here the Bishop and the
two preachers placed themselves. Then the Bishop
rose with right hand uplifted, and said solemnly:
" May God bless to us all the Message which His
two servants have brought us from oversea; for
Christ's sake, Amen."
George Stairs remained kneeling at his end of the
table. But as the Bishop resumed his seat Arthur
Reynolds stepped forward, and, pitching his voice
well, said:
" My friends, let us sing the British Anthem."
And at that the great organ spoke, and the choir
of sailors, soldiers, and nurses led the singing of the
National Anthem. The first bar was sung by the
273
THE MESSAGE
choir alone, but by the time the third bar was reached
thousands among the standing congregation were
singing with them, and the volume of sound was most
impressive. I think that a good many people besides
myself found this solemn singing of the Anthem,
from its first line to its last, something of a revelation.
It made " God Save the King " a real prayer instead
of a musical intimation that hats might be felt for
and carriages ordered. It struck a note which the
Canadian preachers desired to strike. They began
with a National Hymn which was a prayer for King
and Country. The people were at first startled, and
then pleased, and then stirred by a departure from
all customs known to them. And that this should be
so was, I apprehend, the deliberate intention of the
Canadian preachers.
Still George Stairs knelt at his end of the bare
table.
As the last note of the organ accompaniment died
away, Arthur Reynolds stepped to the front.
" Will you all pray, please ? " he said. He closed
his eyes and extended one hand.
I cannot tell you what simple magic the man used.
I know those were his words. But the compelling
appeal in them was most remarkable. There was
something childlike about his simple request. I do
not think any one could have scoffed at the man.
After a minute's silence, he prayed aloud, and this is
what he said:
" Father in Heaven, give us strength to under-
stand our duty and to do it. Thou knowest that two
of the least among Thy servants have crossed the sea
274
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
to give a Message to their kinsmen in England. Our
kinsmen are a great and proud people, and we, as
Thou knowest, are but very simple men. But our
Message is from Thee, and with Thee all things are
possible. Father, have pity upon our weakness to-
day. Open to us the hearts of even the proudest and
the greatest of our kinsmen. Do not let them scorn
us. And, O Father of all men, gentle and simple,
breathe Thou upon us that we may have a strength
not of ourselves ; a power worthy of the Message we
bring, which shall make its truth to shine so that
none may mistake it. For Christ's sake. Amen."
Arthur Reynolds resumed his seat, and a great
Australian singer, a prima donna of world-wide re-
pute, stepped forward very simply and sang as a
solo the hymn beginning :
Church of the Living God,
Pillar and ground of truth,
Keep the old paths the fathers trod
In thy illumined youth.
The prayer had softened all hearts by its sim-
plicity, its humility. The exquisitely rendered
hymn attuned all minds to thoughts of ancient,
simple piety, and the traditions which guided and
inspired our race in the past. When it was ended,
and not till then, George Stairs rose from his knees,
and stepped forward to where a little temporary ex-
tension jutted out beyond the rest of the platform.
He stood there with both hands by his side, and a
Bible held in one of them. His head inclined a little
forward. It was an attitude suggestive rather of
275
THE MESSAGE
submission to that great assembly, or to some Power
above it, than of exhortation. Watching him as he
stood there, I realized what a fine figure of a man
George was, how well and surely Canadian life had
developed him. His head was massive, his hair thick
and very fair; his form lithe, tall, full of muscular
elasticity.
He stood so, silent, for a full minute, till I began
to catch my breath from nervousness. Then he
opened the Bible, and:
" May I just read you a few verses from the
Bible?" he said.
There was the same directness, the same simple,
almost childlike appeal that had touched the people
in Reynolds's prayer. He read some verses from the
First Book of Samuel. I remember:
" ' And did I choose him out of all the tribes of
Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to
burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? And did
I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings
made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore
kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I
have commanded in my habitation ; and honouredst
thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the
chief est of all the offerings of Israel, my people?
Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed
that thy house and the house of thy father should
walk before me for ever ; but now the Lord saith, be
it far from me; for them that honour me I will
honour, and them that despise me shall be lightly
esteemed. Behold the day is come, that I will cut
off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, and
276
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
there shall not be an old man in my house. And thou
shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth
which God shall give Israel. . . . And I will raise
me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to
that which is in mine heart and in my mind. . . ." :
There was a pause, and then the preacher read a
passage from Judges, ending with the famous war-
cry : " The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon." He
looked up then, and, without reference to the Bible
in his hand, repeated several verses:
" ' And by thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt
serve thy brother : and it shall come to pass when thou
shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his
yoke from off thy neck.'
" ' He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment
and buy one.'
" * For he beareth not the sword in vain : for he is
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon
him that doeth evil.'
" ' And take the helmet of salvation, and the Sword
of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.'
" ' Think not that I am come to send peace on
earth ; I came not to send peace but a sword.' Not
the peace of indolence and dishonour ; not the fatted
peace of mercenary well-being; but a Sword; the
Sword of the Lord, the Sword of Duty, which creates,
establishes, and safeguards the only true peace
the peace of honourable peoples."
I remember his slow turning of leaves in his Bible,
and I remember:
" ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is
277
THE MESSAGE
the whole duty of man ' the whole duty
Yes, ' but isn't Duty rather an early Victorian sort
of business, and a bit out of date, anyhow? ' That
was what a young countryman of mine from Dor-
set, he came said to me in Calgary, last year. I
told him that, according to my reading of history,
it had come down a little farther than early Victorian
days. I remember I mentioned Rorke's Drift; and
he rather liked that. But, of course, I knew what he
meant."
It was in this very simple strain, without a gesture,
without a trace of dramatic appeal, that George
Stairs began to address that great gathering. Much
has been said and written of the quality of revelation
which was instinct in that first address ; of its compel-
ling force, its inspired strength, the convincing di-
rectness of it all. And I should be the last to deny
to my old friend's address any of the praises lavished
upon it by high and low. But what I would say of it
is that, even now, sufficient emphasis and import are
never attached to the most compelling quality of all
in George Stairs's words : their absolutely unaffected
simplicity. I think a ten-year-old child could have
followed his every word with perfect understanding.
Nowadays we take a fair measure of simplicity for
granted. Anything less would condemn a man as a
fool or a mountebank. But be it remembered that
the key-note and most striking feature of all recent
progress has been the advance toward simplicity in all
things. At the period of George Stairs's first exposi-
tion of the new evangel in the Albert Hall, we were
not greatly given to simplicity. It was scarcely
278
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
noticeable at that time even among tillers of the earth.
Not to put too fine a point upon it, we were a tinselled
lot of mimes, greatly given to apishness, and shun-
ning naked truth as though it were the plague. Past
masters in compromise and self-delusion, we had
stripped ourselves of simplicity in every detail of life,
and, from the cradle to the grave, seemed willingly
to be hedged about with every kind of complexity.
We so maltreated our physical palates that they re-
sponded only to flavours which would have alarmed
a plain-living man; and, metaphorically, the same
thing held good in every concern of our lives, until
simplicity became non-existent among us, and was
forgotten. There were men and women in that Sunr-
day afternoon gathering at the Albert Hall whose
very pleasures were a complicated and laborious art,
whose pastimes were a strain upon the nervous sys-
tem, whose leisure was quite an arduous business.
This it was which gave such striking freshness,
such compelling strength, to the simple, forthright
directness, the unaffected earnestness and modesty of
the Message brought us by the Canadian preachers.
The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who
ever heard the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found
resentment impossible after George Stairs's little ac-
count of his leaving Dorset as a boy of twelve, and
picking up such education as he had, while learning
how to milk cows, bed down horses, split fire-wood, and
perform " chores " generally, on a Canadian farm.
Even during his theological course, vacations had
found him in the harvest field.
" You may guess my diffidence, then," he said, " in
279
THE MESSAGE
lifting up my voice before such a gathering as this,
here in the storied heart of the Empire, the city I
have reverenced my life long as the centre of the
world's intelligence. But there is not a man or woman
here to-day who would chide a lad who came home
from school with tidings of something he had learned
there. That is my case, precisely. I have been to
one of our outside schools, from my home here in this
beloved island. Home and school alike, they are all
part of our family heritage yours and mine. I
only bring you your own word from another part of
our own place. That is my sole claim to stand before
you to-day. Yet, when I think of it, it satisfies me;
it safeguards me from the effect of misunderstanding
or offence, so long as my hearers are of my kin
British."
His description of Canada and the life he had lived
there occupied us for no more than ten minutes, at
the outside. It has appeared in so many books that I
will not attempt to quote that little masterpiece of
illumination. But by no means every reproduction of
this passage adds the simple little statement which
divided it from its successor.
" That has been my life. No brilliant qualities are
demanded of a man in such a life. The one thing
demanded is that he shall do his duty. You remem-
ber that passage in Ecclesiastes ' The conclusion
of the whole matter ' ? "
And then came the story of Edward Hare. That
moved the people deeply.
" My first curacy was in Southern Manitoba.
When I was walking from the church to the farm-
280
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
house where I lodged, after morning service, one per-
fect day in June, I passed a man called Edward Hare,
sitting at the edge of a little bluff, on a rising piece
of ground. I had felt drawn toward this man. He
was a Londoner, and, in his first two years, had had
a tough fight. But he had won through, and now
had just succeeded in adding a hundred and sixty
acres to his little farm, which was one of the most
prosperous in the district.
" ' I didn't see you at church this morning, Hare,'
I said, after we had chatted a minute or two.
" * No,' said he ; 'I wasn't at church. I've been
here by this bluff since breakfast, and Parson ! '
he said, with sudden emphasis, * I shall give up the
farm. I'm going back Home.'
" Well, of course, I was surprised, and pressed
him for reasons. ' Well,' he said, * I don't know as I
can make much of a show of reasons ; but I'm going.
Did you notice anything special about the weather,
or or that, this morning, Parson?' I told him I
had only noticed that it was a very sweet, clear, happy
sort of a morning. ' That's just it, Parson,' he said ;
* sweet and clear and clean it is ; and I don't believe
there's any sweeter, cleaner thing than this morning
on my farm no, not in heaven, Parson,' he said.
1 And that's why I'm going back Home to London ; to
Battersea; that's where I lived before I came here.'
" I waited for him to tell me more, and presently
he said : ' You know, Parson, I was never what you
might call a drunkard, not even at Home, where
drinkin's the regular thing. But I used to get
through a tidy lot of liquor, one way and another,
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THE MESSAGE
and most generally two or three pints too many of a
Saturday night. Then, of a Sunday morning, the
job was waiting for the pubs to open. Nobody in
our street ever did much else of a Sunday. I sup-
pose you don't happen to have ever been down the
Falcon Road of a Sunday morning, Parson? No?
Well, you see, the street's a kind of market all Satur-
day night, up till long after midnight costers'
barrows with flare-lights, gin-shops full to the door,
and all the fun of the fair all the fun of the fair.
Mothers and fathers, lads and sweethearts, babies in
prams, and toddlers in blue plush and white wool;
you see them all crowding the bars up till midnight,
and they see well, they see Battersea through a
kind of a bright gaze. Then comes Sunday, and a
dry throat, and waiting for the pubs to open. The
streets are all a litter of dirty newspaper and cab-
bage-stumps, and worse; and the air's kind of sick
and stale.'
" At that Hare stopped talking, and looked out
over the prairie on that June morning. Presently he
went on again : ' Well, Parson, when I came out here
this morning I haven't tasted beer for over three
years I sat down and looked around ; and, some-
how, I thought I'd never seen anything so fine in all
my life ; so sweet and clean ; the air so bright, like
dew ; and green well, look at it, far as your eye
can carry ! And all this round, away to the bluff
there, and the creek this way; it's mine, every foot
of it. Well, after a bit, I was looking over there to
the church, and what d'ye think I saw, all through
the pretty sunlight? I saw the Falcon Road, a pub
282
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
I know there, and a streak of sunshine running over
the wire blinds into the bar, all frowsy and shut in,
with the liquor stains over everything. And outside,
I saw the pasty-faced crowd waiting to get in, and
all the Sunday litter in the road. Parson, I got the
smell of it, the sick, stale smell of it, right here in
Paradise; I got the frowsy smell of it, and heard
the waily children squabbling, and I can't tell you
any more of what I saw. If you'd ever seen it, you'd
know.'
" And there he stopped again, until I moved. Then
he said : ' Parson, if you saw a fellow starving on a
bit of land over there that wouldn't feed a prairie-
chick, and you knew of a free homestead across the
creek, where he could raise five and twenty bushels to
the acre and live like a man, would you leave him to
rot on his bare patch? Not you. That's why I'm
going Home to Battersea.'
" If Hare had been a married man I might have
advised him otherwise. But he was married only to
the farm he had wrought so well, and it did not seem
to me part of my business to come between a man and
his duty as he saw it. That man came Home, and
took the cheapest lodging he could get in Battersea.
He had sold his farm well. Now he took to street
preaching, and what he preached was, not religion,
but the prairie. * Lord sake, young folk ! ' he used
to say to the lads and girls when they turned toward
the public-houses. * Hold on ! Wait a minute ! I
want to tell you something ! ' And he would tell them
what four years' clean work had given him in Can-
ada.
283
THE MESSAGE
" He got into touch with various emigration agen-
cies. The money he had lasted him, living as he did,
for five years. In that time he was the means of
sending nine hundred and twenty men and five hun-
dred and forty women and girls to a free and inde-
pendent life in Canada. Just before his money was
exhausted, England's affliction, England's chastise-
ment, came upon her like God's anger in a thunder-
bolt. Hare had meant to return to Canada to make
another start, and earn money enough to return to
his work here. Instead of that, my friends, instead
of what he called Paradise in Manitoba, God took him
straight into Heaven. He left his body beside the
North London entrenchments, where, so one of his
comrades told me, he fought like ten men for Eng-
land, knowing well that, if captured, he would be
shot out of hand as a civilian bearing arms. One may
say of Edward Hare, I think, tljat he saw his duty
very clearly and did it.
" But what of us ? What of you, and I, my
friends ? How do we stand regarding Duty ? "
I never heard such questions in my life. He had
been speaking smoothly, evenly, calmly, and without
gesticulation. With the questions, his body was bent
as though for a leap ; his hands flung forward.
These questions left him like bullets. It was as
though that great hall had been in blackest darkness,
and with a sudden movement the speaker had switched
on ten thousand electric lights. I saw men rise to a
284
half-erect posture. I heard women catch their breath.
The air of the place seemed all aquiver.
" My friends, will you please pray with me? "
He leaned forward, an appeal in every line of his
figure, addressed confidentially to each soul present.
Then his right hand rose:
" Please God, help me to give my Message ! Please
God, open London's heart to hear my Message !
Please God, give me strength to tell it now ! For
Christ's sake. Amen ! "
One heard a low, emphatic, and far-carrying
" Amen ! " from the lips of London's Bishop ; and I
think that, too, meant something to the great con-
gregation of Londoners assembled there.
Immediately then, it was, while the electric thrill of
his questions and the simple prayer still held all his
audience at high tension, that George Stairs plunged
into the famous declaration of the new evangel of
Duty and Simplicity. If any man in the world has
learned for himself that prayer is efficacious, that
man is the Rev. George Stairs. For it is now univer-
sally admitted that such winged words as those of his
first great exposition of the doctrine of Duty and
simple living, the doctrine which has placed the Eng-
lish-speaking peoples in the forefront of Christen-
dom, had never before thrilled an English audience.
His own words were a perfect example of the in-
vincible virtue of simplicity ; his presence there was
a glowing evidence of the force of Duty. It is quite
certain that the knowledge shown in his flashing
summary of nineteenth-century English history was
not knowledge based upon experience. But neither
285
THE MESSAGE
the poets, nor the most learned historians, nor the
most erudite of naval experts, has ever given a pic-
ture so instantly convincing as the famous passage
of his oration which showed us, first, the British Fleet
on the morning of Trafalgar; then, Nelson going
into action; then, the great sailor's dying apotheosis
of Duty; and, finally, England's reception of her
dead hero's body. The delivery of this much-quoted
passage was a matter of moments only, but from
where I stood I saw streaming eyes in women's faces,
and that stiff, unwinking stare on men's faces which
indicates tense effort to restrain emotion.
And so, with a fine directness and simplicity of
progress, he carried us down through the century to
its stormy close, with vivid words of tribute for the
sturdy pioneers of Victorian reform who fought for
and built the freest democracy in the world, and gave
us the triumphant enlightenment which illumined
Victoria's first Jubilee.
" ' But isn't Duty a rather early Victorian sort of
business, and out of date, anyhow ? ' said my young
countryman in Calgary. To the first half of his
question there can be no answer but ' Yes.' To deny
it were to slander our fathers most cruelly. But what
of the question's second half? Our fathers have no
concern with the answering of that. Is Duty ' out of
date,' my friends? If so, let us burn our churches.
If so, let the bishops resign their bishoprics. If so,
let us lower for ever the flag which our fathers made
sacred from pole to pole. If so, let Britain admit
as well first as last that she has retired for ever
from her proud place among the nations, and is no
286
THE SWORD OF THE LORD
more to be accounted a Power in Christendom ; for
that is no place for a people with whom Duty is out
of date.
" ' And did I choose him out of all the tribes of
Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar ? . . .
But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for them
that honour me I will honour, and them that despise
me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold the days come
that I will cut off thine arm! ' "
It was almost unbearable. No one had guessed the
man had such a voice. He had recited that passage
quietly. Then came the rolling thunder of the:
" Behold the days come that I will cut off thine
arm ! " A woman in the centre of the hall cried aloud,
upon a high note. The roar of German artillery in
North London never stirred Londoners as this par-
ticular sentence of God's Word stirred them in the
Albert Hall.
And then, in a voice keyed down again to calm and
tender wisdom, the words of the Scriptural poet stole
out over the heads of the perturbed people, stilling
their minds once more into the right receptive vein:
" ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter :
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the
whole duty of man.' '
Like balm, the stately words fell upon the people,
as a light to lighten their darkness, as an end and a
solution to a situation found intolerable. But, though
calm resolve was in George Stairs's gift that day, he
suffered no complaisance; and, by this time, he held
that great assembly in the hollow of his hand. It was
then he dealt with the character of our own century,
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THE MESSAGE
as distinguished from that of the Victorian era. It
was then his words taught me, personally, more than
all he had said besides.
I will not quote from a passage which has been
incorporated in hundreds of school-books. It is gen-
erally admitted that the end and purpose underlying
the civil and national code of our age has never since
been more admirably stated than on the day of its
first enunciation in the Albert Hall by George Stairs.
His words were glowing when he showed us how the
key-note of our fathers' age had been the claiming
and establishing of rights and privileges. His words
stung like whip-thongs when he depicted our greedy,
self-satisfied enjoyment of those rights and privi-
leges, with never a thought, either of the various
obligations pertaining to them, or of our plain duty
in the conservation for our children of all that had
been won for us. Finally, his words were living fire
of incentive, red wine of stimulation, when he urged
upon us the twentieth-century watchword of Duty,
and the loyal discharge of obligations.
" Theirs, an age crowned by well-won triumph, was
the century of claimant demand; ours is the century
of grateful obedience. Theirs was the age of claims ;
ours the age of Duty. Theirs the century of rights ;
ours the century of Duty. Theirs the period of
brave, insistent constructive effort; ours the period
of Duty Duty Duty!
" In fighting to obtain all that they won for us,
our fathers pledged themselves and us to be fit
recipients, true freemen. For a moment, misled by
the glare of wealth and pleasure, we have played the
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THE PREACHERS
caitiff's part ; grasped freemen's privileges, without
thanks, and with repudiation of the balancing duties
and obligations without which no rights can survive.
And ' Behold, the days come that I will cut off
thine arm ! '
" The God of our fathers trusted them, in our
behalf; and we played traitor. So God smote Eng-
land, through the arrogant war-lords of another
people. That blow, self-administered, is Heaven's
last warning to England. In truth, the blow was
ours, yours and mine ; we ourselves it was who played
the traitor and struck a cruel blow at Britain's heart.
Unworthy sons of valiant sires, we snatched our
wages and shirked our work ; seized the reward and
refused the duty. God in His mercy gave us many
warnings ; but we hid our faces and pursued our
selfish ends. ' Behold, the days come '
" But God stayed His hand. England lies bloody
but unbroken. There can be no more warnings. The
time for warnings has gone by. There can be no
more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will
ye be men or helots and outcasts ? Will you choose
Duty, and the favour of God's appointed way for us,
of progress and of leadership ; or will you choose
pleasure, swift decay, annihilation ? Upon your heads
be it ! Our fathers nobly did their part. Upon your
choice hangs the future of our race, the fate of your
children, the destiny of God's chosen people, who have
paltered with strange gods, blasphemed the true
faith, and stepped aside from the white path the
Only Way : Duty ! "
He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the
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THE MESSAGE
great organ rose and swelled mightily, filling the hall
with the strains of the British National Anthem.
Every soul in the building stood erect, and following
the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the Brit-
ish hymn as it was never sung before. As the last
note throbbed into silence in the hall's dome, George
Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the
anthem, advanced, with hand uplifted.
" God helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely
will help us, do we choose Duty, or pleasure ? Choose,
my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it pleasure? "
It was a severe test to put to such an assembly, to
a congregation of all classes of London society.
There was a moment of silence in which I saw George
Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which
seemed to cloud my vision. And then the answer
came, like a long, rolling clap of thunder:
" Duty ! "
And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in
prayer, as the Bishop dismissed the people with a
benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in a hoarse
voice.
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THE PREACHERS
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them ; who in love and truth
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth :
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work, and know it not :
O! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.
Ode to Duty.
IT was with something of a shock that I learned,
while endeavouring to make my way through a
dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's dressing-
room, that my friend, George Stairs, was lying un-
conscious in a fainting fit. But my anxiety was not
long-lived. Several doctors had volunteered their
services, and from one of them I learned that the
fainting fit was no more than the momentary result
of an exceptional strain of excitement.
Within half an hour, Stairs and Reynolds were
both resting comfortably in a private sitting-room at
a neighbouring hotel, and there I visited them, with
Constance Grey and Mrs. Van Homrey, and John
Crondall. Stairs assured us that his fainting was of
no consequence, and that he felt perfectly fit and well
again.
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THE MESSAGE
" You see it was something of an ordeal for me,
a nobody from nowhere, to face such an assembly."
" Well," said John Crondall, " I suppose that at
this moment there is not a man in London who is
much more a somebody, and less a nobody from no-
where."
" You think we succeeded, then ? "
" My dear fellow ! I think your address of this
afternoon was the most important event England has
known this century. Mark my words, that great
thunder of ' Duty ! ' that you drew from them
from a London audience, mind is to have more far-
reaching results for the British Empire than the
acquisition of a continent."
" No, no, my dear Crondall, you surely overrate
the thing," said Stairs, warm colour spreading over
his pale face.
" Well, you can take my deliberate assurance that
in my opinion you achieved more for your country
this afternoon than it has been my good fortune to
achieve in the whole of a rather busy life."
Stairs protested, blushing like a girl. But we
know now that, so far at all events as his remarks
were prophetic, John Crondall was absolutely right ;
though whether or not the new evangel could have
achieved what it did without the invasion is another
matter.
Myself, I believe nothing could have been more
triumphantly successful, more prenant with great
possibilities for good, than the event of that after-
noon. Yet I was assured that fully two thousand
five hundred more people crowded into the hall for
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THE PREACHERS
the evening service than had been there to hear
Stairs's address. And I had thought the huge place
crowded in the afternoon. As before, the service
began and ended with the National Anthem ; but in
the evening the great assembly was thrilled to its
heart by the Australian prima donna's splendid sing-
ing of Wordsworth's Ode to Duty in the setting spe-
cially composed for this occasion by Doctor Elgar.
I saw very many faces that I had seen at the first
service, but I believe that there was a far greater
proportion of poorer folk present than there had been
in the afternoon. The President of the Congrega-
tional Union presided, and the address was delivered
by Arthur Reynolds.
As with Stairs, so with Reynolds, Duty was the
gist and heart of the Message delivered Duty,
plain living, simplicity ; these they both urged to be
the root of the whole matter. Both men gave sub-
stantially the same Message, there can be no doubt
of that; but there were differences, and upon the
whole I am inclined to think that Reynolds's address
was more perfectly adapted to his hearers than
Stairs's would have been if his had been given that
evening. Reynolds's diction in public speaking was
not quite his conversational speech, because nothing
like slang, nothing altogether colloquial crept into it,
but its simplicity was notable; it was the diction of
a frank, earnest child. There were none of the stere-
otyped phrases of piety ; yet I never heard a more
truly pious and deeply religious discourse.
The social and political aspects of Duty were more
cursorily treated by Reynolds than its moral and
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THE MESSAGE
religious aspect. There was nothing heterodox in the
view put forward by this preacher from oversea. A
man may find salvation in this world and the next
through love and faith, he said in effect; but the
love and faith must be of the right sort. The re-
demption of the world was the world's greatest mira-
cle; but it did not offer mankind salvation in return
for a given measure of psalm-singing, sentimental-
izing, and prayerful prostrations. Christianity was
something which had to be lived, not merely contem-
plated. Love and faith were all-sufficient, but they
must be the true love and faith, of which Duty was
the legitimate offspring. The man who thought that
any form of piety which permitted the neglect of
Duty, would win him either true peace in this life or
salvation in the next, was as pitifully misled as the
man who indulged himself in a vicious life with a view
to repentance when he should be too near his demise
to care for indulgence.
" But, even if one could put aside all thought of
God and the life compared with which this life is but
an instant of time ; even then there would be nothing
left really worth serious consideration besides Duty.
Dear friends, you who listen so kindly to the man who
comes to you from across the sea, I ask you to look
about you in the streets and among the people you
know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy.
In this connection I dare not speak of the land of my
birth, because, though it is yours as truly as it is
mine, and we are all blood-brothers, yet I might be
thought guilty of a vain partiality. But I do say
that I cannot think the majority of the people of
294
THE PREACHERS
England are really happy. I do not believe the
majority of Londoners are happy. I am sure that
the majority of those who spend an immense amount
of money here in the West End of London, are not
one whit happier than the average man who works
hard for a few pounds a week.
" If I am certain of anything in this world, I am
certain that the pursuit of pleasure never yet brought
real happiness to any intelligent human being, and
never will. True, I have met some happy people in
London, even now, when England lies wounded from
a cruel blow a blow which I believe may prove the
greatest blessing England ever knew. But those
happy people are not running after pleasure or con-
centrating their intelligence upon their own gratifi-
cation. No, no; those happy people are strenuously,
soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as
Christians and British citizens. They are happy
because of that.
" Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that,
even apart from God's will and the all-sacrificing love
of His Son, there is absolutely no real happiness in
this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty. If
you profess you love a woman, but shirk your duty by
her, of what worth is such love? Is God of less im-
portance to you? Is Eternity of less importance?
Are King and Country, and the future of our race
and the millions who depend on us for light and guid-
ance and protection, of less importance? As God
hears me, nothing is of any importance, beside the one
thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to
life, here and hereafter. That one thing is Duty."
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THE MESSAGE
The evening congregation was more demonstrative
than that of the afternoon, and though I do not
think the impression produced by Reynolds's address
was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs
it could hardly have been that its effects were more
noticeable. The great crowd that streamed out of the
hall after the Benediction had been pronounced, testi-
fied in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's
assertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the
very depths of London's heart as no other missioners
had ever stirred them.
By George Stairs's invitation, Mrs. Van Homrey,
Constance, Crondall, myself, Sir Herbert Tate, and
Forbes Thompson, joined the preachers that evening,
quite informally, at their very modest supper board.
It must have been a little startling to a bon vivant
like Sir Herbert to find that the men who had stormed
London, supped upon bread and cheese and celery
and cold rice pudding, and, without a hint of apology,
offered their guests the same Spartan entertainment.
But it was quite a brilliant function so far as mental
activity and high spirits were concerned. We were
discussing the possibilities of the Canadian preachers'
pilgrimage, and Crondall said :
" I know that some of you think I take too sanguine
a view, but, mark my words, these meetings to-day
are the beginning of the greatest religious, moral,
and national revival that the British people have ever
seen. I am certain of it. Your blushes are quite
beside the point, Stairs ; they are wholly irrelevant ;
so is your modesty. Why, my dear fellow, you
couldn't help it if you tried. You two men are the
296
THE PREACHERS
mouthpiece of the hour. The hour having come, you
could not stay its Message if you tried, nor check the
tide of its effect. I know my London. In a matter
of this kind a moral movement London is the
hardest place in the kingdom to move, because its
bigness and variety make it so many-sided. Having
achieved what you have achieved to-day in London,
I say nothing can check your progress. My counsel
is for no more than a week in London ; two days more
in the west, three in the east, and one in the south;
and then a bee-line due north through England, with
a few days in all big centres."
" Well," said Reynolds, " whatever happens after
to-night, I just want to say what George Stairs has
more than once said to me, and that is, that to-day's
success is three parts due to Mr. Crondall for every
one part due to us."
" And to his secretary," said Stairs. " It really is
no more than bare truth. Without you, Crondall,
there would have been no Albert Hall for us."
" And no Bishop," added Reynolds.
" And no great personages."
" And no columns and columns of newspaper an-
nouncements."
" In point of fact, there would have been none of
the splendid organization which made to-day possible.
I recognize it very clearly. If this is to prove the
beginning of a really big movement, then it is a
beginning in which The Citizens and their founder
have played a very big part. You won't find that we
shall forget that; and I know Reynolds is with me
when I say that we shall leave no word unsaid, or act
297
THE MESSAGE
undone, which could make our pilgrimage helpful to
The Citizens' campaign. I tell you, standing before
that vast assembly to-day, it was borne in upon me as
I had not felt it before, that your aims and ours are
inseparable. We cannot succeed without your suc-
ceeding, nor you without our succeeding. Our inter-
pretation of Christianity, our Message, is Duty and
simple living, and unless the people will accept that
Message they will never achieve what you seek of
them. On the other hand, if they will answer your
call they will be going a long way toward accepting
and acting upon our Message."
" I am mighty thankful that has come home to you,
Stairs," said Crondall. " I felt it very strongly when
I first asked you to come and talk things over. Your
pilgrimage is going to wake up England, morally.
It will be our business to see that newly waked Eng-
land choose the right direction for the first outlay of
its energy. The thing will go far much farther
than I have said, and far beyond England's immedi-
ate need. But, of course, we mustn't lose sight of
that immediate need. If I am not greatly mistaken,
one of the first achievements of this movement will
be the safe steering of the British public through the
General Election. With the New Year I hope to see
a real Imperial Parliament sitting. By that I mean
a strong Government administering England from the
House of Commons, while some of its members sit in
an Imperial Chamber Westminster Hall and
help elected representatives of every one of the Colo-
nies to govern the Empire. My belief is there will
be no such thing as an Opposition in the House.
298
THE PREACHERS
Why should England continue to waste its time and
energy over pulling both ways in every little job its
legislators have to tackle. It sterilizes the efforts of
the good men, and gives innumerable openings to the
fools and cranks and obstructionists. You will find
the very names of the old futile cross-purposes of
party warfare will fall into the limbo which has swal-
lowed up the pillory, the stocks, and Little England-
ism. With deference to the cloth present in the per-
son of our reverend friends here, let me quote you
what to me is one of the most strikingly interesting
passages in the Bible : ' The vile person shall be no
more called liberal.' It will become clear to all men
that the only possible party, the only people who can
possibly stand for progress, movement, advance, are
those who stand firm for Imperial Federation."
" And then ? " said Constance, leaning forward,
her face illumined by her shining eyes. Crondall
drew a long breath.
" And then then Britain will have something to
say to the Kaiser."
As we rose from the table, George Stairs laid his
hand on Reynolds's shoulder.
" Deep waters these, my friend," said he, " for
simple parsons from the backwoods. But our part
is plain, and close at hand. Our work is to make the
writing on the wall flame till all can read and feel:
Duty first, last, and all the time. ' The conclusion of
the whole matter.' "
" Yes, yes ; that's so," said Reynolds, thoughtfully.
And then he added, as it were an afterthought:
" But was that remark about vile people no more
299
being called liberal really scriptural, I wonder I
wonder ! "
" Without a doubt," said Crondall, with a broad
grin. " You look up Isaiah xxxn. 5. You will find
it there, written maybe three thousand years ago,
fitting to-day's situation like a glove."
On the way out to South Kensington, where I ac-
companied the ladies, I asked Constance what she
thought of my old chum, George Stairs.
" Why, Dick," she said, " he makes me feel that an
English village can still produce the finest type of
man that walks the earth. But, as things have been,
in our time, I'm glad this particular man didn't re-
main in his native village aren't you ? "
" Yes," I agreed, with a half -sad note I could not
keep out of my voice. " I suppose Colonial life has
taught him a lot."
" Oh, he is magnificent ! "
"And look at John Crondall!"
" Ah, John is a wonderful man ; Empire-taught, is
John."
" And I suppose the man who has never lived the
outside life in the big, open places can never "
And then I think she saw what had brought the
twinge of sadness to me; for she touched my arm,
her bright eyes gleamed upon me, and
" You're a terribly impatient man, Dick." she said,
with a smile. " It seems to me you've trekked a
mighty long way from The Mass office in how
many weeks is it? "
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THE CITIZENS
Serene will be our days, and bright
And happy will our nature be
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
And they a blissful course may hold
Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find that other strength according to their need.
Ode to Duty.
CHARLES CORBETT'S History of the Re-
vival is to my mind the most interesting book
of this century. There are passages in it which leave
me marvelling afresh each time I read them, that any
writer, however gifted, could make quite so intimate
a revelation, without personal knowledge of the inside
workings of the movement he describes so perfectly.
But it is a fact that Corbett never spoke with Stairs
or Reynolds, or Crondall; neither, I think, was he
personally known to any member of the executive of
The Citizens. Yet I know from my own working
experience of the Revival, both in connection with the
pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers and the cam-
paign of The Citizens, that Corbett's descriptions are
marvellously accurate and lifelike, and that the con-
clusions he draws could not have been made more cor-
301
THE MESSAGE
rect and luminous if they had been written by the
leaders of the great joint movement themselves.
The educational authorities were certainly well ad-
vised in making Corbett's great work the base from
which the contemporary history text-books for use in
the national schools were drawn. Your modern stu-
dents, by the way, would find it hard to realize that,
even at the time of the Revival, our school-children
were obliged to waste most of the few hours a week
which were devoted to historical studies, to the weari-
some memorizing of dates and genealogies connected
with the Saxon Heptarchy. As a rule they had no
time left in which to learn anything whatever of the
progress of their own age, or the nineteenth-century
development of the Empire. At that time a national
schoolboy destined to earn his living as a soldier or
a sailor, or a tinker or a tailor, sometimes knew a
little of the Saxon kings of England, or even a few
dates connected with the Norman Conquest, and the
fact that Henry VIII. had six wives. But he had
never heard of the Reform Bill, and knew nothing
whatever of the incorporation of India, Australia,
South Africa, or Canada.
I suppose the most notable and impressive intima-
tion received by the British public of the fact that a
great religious, moral, and social revival had begun
among them, was contained in Monday morning's
newspapers, after the first great Albert Hall services.
The recognized chief among imperialistic journals
became from the beginning the organ of the new
movement. Upon that Monday morning I remember
that this journal's first leading article was devoted
302
THE CITIZENS
to the Message of the Canadian preachers, its second
to the coming of the various Colonial delegates for the
Westminster Hall Conference. For the rest, the
centre of the paper was occupied by a four-page
supplement, with portraits, describing fully, and re-
porting verbatim the Albert Hall services. The open-
ing sentences of the leading article gave the public
its cue:
" There can be little doubt, we think, that yester-
day's services at the Albert Hall mark the inaugura-
tion of a national movement in morals, which, before
it has gone far, is as likely to earn the name of the
Revolution as that of Revival. A religious, moral,
and social revolution is what we anticipate as the
result of the mission of the Canadian preachers.
Never before has London been so stirred to its moral
and emotional depths. In such a movement the pro-
vincial centres are not likely to prove less susceptible
than the metropolis."
As a matter of fact, I had occasion to know that
Mr. James Bryanstone, the preachers' secretary (in
whose name John Crondall had carried out the whole
work of organization, while I served him as secretary
and assistant) received during that Monday no fewer
than thirty-four separate telegraphic invitations from
provincial centres subsequently visited by Stairs and
Reynolds. It was, as Crondall had said: The time
was ripe, and the Canadian preachers were the mouth-
piece of the hour. Their Message filled them, and
England was conscious of its need of that Message.
On Monday and Tuesday the afternoon and eve-
ning services at the Albert Hall were repeated.
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THE MESSAGE
Thousands of people were unable to obtain admission
upon each occasion. Some of these people were ad-
dressed by friends of John Crondall's and The Citi-
zens, within the precincts of the hall. On Tuesday
morning, sunrise found a great throng of people
waiting to secure places when the hall should open.
On both days members of the Royal Family were
present, and on Tuesday the Primate of England
presided over the service addressed by Stairs.
During all this time, John Crondall was working
night and day, and I was busy with him in organiz-
ing the recruiting campaign of The Citizens. The
Legion of Frontiersmen, and the members of some
scores of rifle clubs, had been enrolled en bloc as
members, and applications were pouring in upon us
by every post from men who had seen service in dif-
ferent parts of the world, and from men able to equip
themselves either as mounted or foot riflemen. On
Tuesday evening the Canadian preachers announced
that their next day services would be held at the
People's Palace, in the East End. But I fancy that,
among the packed thousands who attended The Citi-
zens' first public meeting at the Albert Hall on
Wednesday afternoon, many came under the impres-
sion that they were to hear the Canadian preachers.
The man of all others in England most fitted for
the office, presided over that first meeting, in full
review uniform, and wearing the sword which had
been returned to him by General Baron von Fiichter,
after the historic surrender at the Mansion House on
Black Saturday. The great little Field Marshal rose
at three o'clock and stood for full five minutes, wait-
304
THE CITIZENS
ing for the tempest of cheering which greeted him to
subside, before he could introduce John Crondall to
that huge audience. Even when the Field Marshal
began to speak he could not obtain complete silence.
As one burst of cheering rumbled to its close, another
would rise from the hall's far side like approaching
thunder, swelling as it came.
It seemed the London public was trying to make up
to its erstwhile hero for its long neglect of his brave
endeavours to warn them against the evils which had
actually befallen. At last, not to waste more time,
the little Field Marshal drew his sword, and waved it
above his head till a penetrant ray of afternoon sun-
light caught and transformed the blade into a streak
of living flame.
" There is a stain on it ! " he shouted, shaking the
blade. " It belongs to you to England and
there's a stain on it; got on Black Saturday. Now
silence, for the man who's for wiping out all stains.
Silence!"
It was long since the little man had delivered him-
self of such a roar, as that last " Silence ! " There
were one or two Indian veterans in the hall who remem-
bered the note. It had its effect, and John Crondall
stood, presently, before an entirely silent and eagerly
expectant multitude, when he began his explanation
of the ends and aims of The Citizens. I remember
he began by saying :
" I cannot pretend to be a Canadian preacher I
wish I could." And here there was another demon-
stration of cheering. One realized that afternoon
that the Canadians had lighted a fire in London that
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THE MESSAGE
would not easily be put out. " No, I am a native of
your own London," said Crondall ; " but I admit to
having learned most of the little I know in Canada,
South Africa, India, and Australia. And if there is
one thing I have learned very thoroughly in those
countries, it is to love England. She has no braver
or more devoted sons and lovers within her own
shores than our kinsmen oversea. You will find we
shall have fresh proofs of that very soon. Mean-
time, just in passing, I want to tell you this: You
have read something in the papers of The Citizens,
the organization of Britishers who are sworn to the
defence of Britain. I am here to tell you about them.
Well, in the past fortnight, I have received two hun-
dred and forty cable messages from representative
citizens in Canada, South Africa, Australia, India,
and other parts of the Empire, claiming membership,
and promising support through thick and thin, from
thousands of our kinsfolk oversea. So, before I
begin, I give you the greeting of men of our blood
from all the ends of the earth. They are with us
heart and hand, my friends, and eager to prove it.
And now I am going to tell you something about
The Citizens"
But before that last sentence had left Crondall's
lips, we were in the thick of another storm of cheer-
ing. The religious character of the Canadian
preachers' meetings had been sufficient to prevent
these outbursts of popular feeling ; but now the pub-
lic seemed to welcome the secular freedom of The
Citizens' gathering, as an opportunity for giving
their feelings vent. I am not sure that it was John
306
THE CITIZENS
Crondall's message from the Colonies that they
cheered. They were moved, I am sure, by a vague
general approval of the idea of a combination of
citizens for British defence. But their cheering I
take to have been produced by feelings they would
have been hard put to it to define in any way. They
had been deeply stirred by the teaching of the Cana-
dian preachers. In short, they had been seized by
the fundamental tenets of the simple faith which has
since come to be known to the world as " British
Christianity " ; and they were eager to find some
way in which they could give tangible expression to
the faith that was burgeoning within them ; stirring
them as young mothers are stirred, filling them with
resolves and aspirations, none the less real and deep-
seated because they were as yet incoherent and shape-
less.
I am only quoting the best observers of the time
,in this description of public feeling when John Cron-
dall made his great recruiting speech for The Citi-
zens. The event proved my chief to have been abso-
lutely right in his reckoning, absolutely sound in his
judgment. He had urged from the beginning that
The Citizens and the Canadian preachers had a com-
mon aim. " But you teach a general principle," he
had said to George Stairs, " while we supply the par-
ticular instance. We must reap where you sow; we
must glean after you ; we must follow you, as night
follows day, as accomplishment follows preparation
because you arouse the sense of duty, you teach
the sacredness of duty, while we give it particular
direction. It's you who will make them Citizens, my
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THE MESSAGE
dear fellow for what you mean by a true Chris-
tian is what I mean by a true citizen our part
is to swear them in. Or, as you might say, you pre-
pare, and we confirm. Those that won't come up to
your standard as Christians, won't be any use to us
as Citizens."
Just how shrewdly John Crondall had gauged the
matter perhaps no one else can realize, even now, so
clearly as those who played a recorder's part in the
recruiting campaign, as I did from that first day in
the Albert Hall, with Constance Grey's assistance,
and, later on, with the assistance of many other peo-
ple. At a further stage, and in other places, we made
arrangements for enrolling members after every
meeting. Upon this occasion we were unable to face
the task, and, instead, a card was given to every ap-
plicant, for subsequent presentation at The Citizens'
headquarters in Victoria Street, where I spent many
busy hours, with a rapidly growing clerical staff,
swearing in new members, and booking the full de-
tails of each man's position and capabilities, for reg-
istration on the roster.
We had no fees of any kind, but every new member
was invited to contribute according to his means to
The Citizens' equipment fund. During the twenty-
four hours following that first meeting at the Albert
Hall, over twenty-seven thousand pounds was re-
ceived in this way from new members. But we en-
rolled many who contributed nothing; and we en-
rolled a few men to whom we actually made small
payments from a special fund raised privately for
that purpose. All this last-named minority, and a
308
THE CITIZENS
certain proportion of other members, went directly
into camp training on the estates of various wealthy
members, who themselves were providing camp equip-
ment and instructors, while, in many cases, arranging
also for employment which should make these camps
as nearly as might be self-supporting.
Among the list of people who agreed to deliver
addresses at our meetings we now included many of
the most eloquent speakers, and some of the most
famous names in England. But I am not sure that
any of them ever evoked the same storms of enthu-
siasm, the same instant and direct response that John
Crondall earned by his simple speeches. Heart and
soul, John Crondall was absorbed in the perfection
and furtherance of the organization he had founded,
and when he sought public support he was irresistible.
In those first days of the campaign there were
times when John Crondall was so furiously occupied,
that his bed hardly knew the touch of him, and I
could not exchange a word with him outside the im-
mediate work of our hands. This was doubtless one
reason why I took a certain idea of mine to Constance
Grey, instead of to my chief. Together, she and I
interviewed Brigadier-General Hapgood, of the Sal-
vation Army, and, on the next day, the venerable
chief of that remarkable organization, General Booth.
The proposition we put before General Booth was
that he should join hands with us in dealing with
that section of our would-be members who described
themselves as unemployed and without resources.
For five minutes the old General stroked his beard,
and offered occasional ejaculatory interrogations. I
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THE MESSAGE
pointed out that the converts of the Canadian preach-
ers (for whom the General expressed unbounded ad-
miration and respect) flocked to our standard, full
of genuine eagerness to carry out the gospel of duty
and simple living. Suddenly, in the middle of one
of my sentences, this commander-in-chief of an army
larger than that of any monarch in Christendom
made up his mind, and stopped me with a gesture.
" We will do it," he said. " Yes, yes, I see what
you would say. Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure ; that
is quite so. We will do it. Come and see me again,
and I will put a working plan before you. Good day
God bless you ! "
And we were being shown out. It was all over in
a few minutes; but that was the beginning of the
connection between the Salvation Army and that sec-
tion of The Citizens whose members lacked both
means and employment. According to a safe and
conservative estimate, we are told that the total num-
ber of sworn Citizens subsequently handled by the
Salvation Army was six hundred and seventy-five
thousand. We supplied the instructors, officers, and
all equipment ; the Salvation Army carried out all the
other work of control, organization, and maintenance,
and made their great farm camps so nearly self-sup-
porting as to be practically no burden upon The
Citizens' funds. The effect upon the men themselves
was wholly admirable. Every one of them was a
genuinely unemployed worker, and the way they all
took their training was marvellous.
I think Constance Grey was as pleased as I was
with the praise we won from John Crondall over this.
310
THE CITIZENS
A little while before this time I should have felt jeal-
ous pangs when I saw her sweet face lighten and glow
at a word of commendation from John Crondall. But
my secretaryship was teaching me many things. No
other woman could ever mean to me one tithe of all
that Constance Grey meant. Of that I was very
sure. To think of such women as handsome Beatrice
Blaine or Sylvia Wheeler, in a vein of comparison,
was for me like comparing the light of a candle in
a distant window with the moon herself. The mere
sound of Constance's voice thrilled me as nothing
else could. But I am glad to remember now that I
no longer knew so small an emotion as jealousy where
she was concerned.
John Crondall was the strongest man of all the men
I knew; Constance was the sweetest woman. Here
was a natural and fitting comradeship. I thought of
my chief as the mate of the woman I loved. My
heart ached at times. But I am glad and proud that
I had no jealousy.
311
SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE
I, loving freedom and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust ;
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray,
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.
Ode to Duty.
IT has often been said of the Canadian preachers
that they conferred the gift of eloquence upon all
their converts. It is certainly a fact that long before
Stairs and Reynolds had traversed half the length of
England, disciples of theirs were winning converts to
" British Christianity " as the religion of Duty
and simple living came to be called in every county
in the kingdom.
In the same way, the progress of The Citizens'
recruiting campaign was made marvellously rapid
and triumphant in character by reason of the enthu-
siastic activity of all new adherents. During the
second of John Crondall's great meetings in Birming-
ham, for example, we received telegraphic greeting
from the chairmen presiding over one hundred and
ninety-eight other meetings then being held for the
furtherance of our cause in different parts of the
SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE
country. And, in many cases, those who addressed
these meetings were among the most famous public
speakers in England.
In most towns we spent no more than twenty-four
hours, in others no more than twelve hours, and in
some we stayed only a third of that time. In one
memorable day we addressed immense gatherings in
four different towns, and travelled one hundred and
thirty miles to boot. But in each one of those towns,
as in every centre visited, we left a properly organ-
ized committee at work, with arrangements for fre-
quent meetings, and the swearing in of new members.
The Canadian preachers spent only one day in
many of the places they visited. But in large centres
they stayed longer, because, after the first week of
the pilgrimage, the attendances at their meetings
became unmanageably large, owing to the arrange-
ments made by railway companies, who ran special
trains to tap the outlying parts of every district
visited. Advance agents a hard-working band,
many of whom were well-to-do volunteers prepared
the way in every detail for the progress of both the
Canadians and ourselves, and local residents placed
every possible facility at our disposal.
Never in the history of religious revivals in Eng-
land has anything been known to equal the whole-
souled enthusiasm with which the new evangel of
Duty was welcomed as the basis of our twentieth-cen-
tury national life. The facts that the Canadian
preachers were rarely seen apart, and that the teach-
ing of each was identical with that of the other, com-
bined with the general knowledge that one repre-
313
THE MESSAGE
sented the Church of England and the other a great
Nonconformist body ; these things divested the pil-
grimage of any suggestion of denominationalism, and
lent it the same urgent strength of appeal for mem-
bers of all sects, and members of none. This seems
natural enough to us now, ours being a Christian
country. But it was regarded then as a wonderful
testimony to the virtue of the new teaching, because
at that time sectarian differences, animosities even,
were very clearly marked, and led far more naturally
to opposition and hostility between the representatives
of different denominations than to anything ap-
proaching united effort in a common cause.
It was during the day we spent in York that
chance led to my witnessing an incident which greatly
affected me. My relations with my chief, John Cron-
dall, were not such as to call for the observance of
much ceremony between us. Accordingly, it was
with no thought of interference with his privacy that
I blundered into my chief's sitting-room to announce
the number of new members we had enrolled after
the meeting. John Crondall was standing on the
hearth-rug, his right hand was resting on Constance
Grey's shoulder, his lips were touching her forehead.
For an instant I thought of retreat. But the thing
seemed too clumsy. Accordingly, having turned to
close the door, with deliberation, I advanced into the
room with some awkward remark about having
thought my chief was alone, and produced my figures
of the enrolment of new members. After a few
moments Constance left us, referring to some errand
she had in view. I did not look at her, and John
314
SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE
Crondall plunged at once into working talk. As for
me, I was acutely conscious that I had seen Crondall
kiss Constance; but my chief made no sign to show
me whether or not he was aware that I had seen this.
Although I thought I had accustomed myself to
the idea of these two being predestined mates, I real-
ized now that no amount of reasoning would ever
really reconcile me to the practical outworking of the
idea. Of course, my feeling about it would be de-
scribed as jealousy pure and simple. Perhaps it was;
but I cherish the idea that it was some more kindly
shade of feeling. I know it brought no hint of re-
sentment or weakening in my affection for John
Crondall ; and most assuredly I harboured no unkind
thought of Constance. But I loved her ; every pulse
in me throbbed love and longing at her approach.
Again and again I had demonstrated to myself my
own unworthiness of such a woman ; the natural
affinity between Constance and Crondall. Yet now,
the sight of that kiss was as the sound of a knell in
my heart ; it filled me with an aching lament for the
death of of something which had still lived in
me, whether admitted or not, till then.
For days after that episode of the kiss I lived in
hourly expectation of a communication from John
Crondall. Our relations were so intimate that I felt
certain he would not withhold his confidence for long.
But day succeeded day in our strenuous, hurried life,
and no word came to me from my chief regarding
any other thing than our own work. Indeed, I
thought I detected a certain new sternness in John
Crondall's demeanour, an extra rigid concentration
315
THE MESSAGE
upon work, which carried with it, for me, a sugges-
tion of his being unwilling to meet one upon any
other than the working footing. I was surprised and
a little hurt about this, because of late there had been
no reservations in the confidence with which my chief
treated me. Also, I could not see any possible reason
for secrecy in such a matter ; it might as well be
told first as last, I thought. And I watched Con-
stance with a brooding eye for signs she never made,
for a confidence which did not come from either of
my friends.
The thing possessed my mind, and must, I fear,
have interfered materially with my work. But after
a time the idea came to me that these two had decided
to allow our joint work to take precedence of their
private happiness, and to put aside their own affairs
until the aims of The Citizens had been attained. I
recalled certain little indications I myself had re-
ceived from Constance before John Crondall's return
from South Africa, to the effect that personal feeling
could have no great weight with her, while our na-
tional fate hung in the balance. And, by dulling the
edge of my expectancy, this conclusion somehow
eased the ache which had possessed me since the day
of the kiss to which chance had made me a witness.
But it did not altogether explain to me the new re-
serve, the hint of stiffness in John Crondall's manner ;
and, rightly or wrongly, I knew when I took Con-
stance's hand in mine, or met the gaze of her shining
eyes, that I did so as a devout lover, and not merely
as a friend.
316
XI
Through no disturbance of my soul
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy controul ;
But in the quietness of thought :
Me this unchartered freedom tires ;
I feel the weight of chance desires :
My hopes no more must change their name;
I long for a repose that ever is the same.
Ode to Duty.
FROM the first, the courtesy of the Press was
securely enlisted in The Citizens' favour by
John Crondall. For many months the Standard,
now firmly established as the principal organ of the
reform movement, devoted an entire page each day
to the progress of our campaign and the pilgrimage
of our forerunners the Canadian preachers. John
Crondall had gone thoroughly into the matter at the
beginning with the editor of this journal, and the
key-note thus given was taken by the Press of the
whole country.
The essence of our treatment by the newspapers
lay in their careful avoidance of all matter which
would be likely to earn for the movement the hostility
of Germany, or of the officers in command of the
German forces in England. Our language took on
317
THE MESSAGE
a new and special meaning in the columns of the
newspapers, where reports of our campaign were con-
cerned. Such adjectives as " social," " moral," and
the like were made to cover quite special meanings,
as applied to the organization of The Citizens. So
ably was all this done, that the German authorities
regarded the whole movement as social and domestic,
with a direct bearing upon the General Election,
perhaps, but none whatever upon international poli-
tics or Anglo-German relations.
In Elberfeld's ponderous history we are given the
text of a despatch to the Kaiser in which General
Baron von Fiichter assured his Imperial master that
any interference with The Citizens and their meet-
ings would be gratuitous and impolitic:
" Their aims being purely social and domestic, and
those of a quasi-religious Friendly Society, resem-
bling something between their ' Band of Hope ' and
their ' Antediluvian Buffaloes.' The English have a
passion for this kind of child's play, and are absurdly
impatient of official surveillance. Their incorrigible
sentimentality is soothed by such movements as those
of the Canadian preachers and The Citizens; but
even the rudiments of discipline or efficient coordina-
tion are lacking among them. Combination against
us would be impossible for them, for this is a country
of individualists, among whom the matter of obliga-
tions to the State is absolutely not recognized. There
is no trace of military feeling among the people, and
in my opinion the invasion might safely have been
attempted five, if not ten years, before it was. The
absence of any note of resentment in their news-
318
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
papers against our occupation has been quite marked
since their preoccupation with the Canadian preach-
ers and The Citizens. The people accept it in the
most matter-of-course manner, and are already en-
tirely absorbed once more in their own affairs, and
even in their sports. British courage and independ-
ence have been no more than a myth for many years
past a bubble which your Majesty's triumphantly
successful policy has burst for ever."
Another important feature, alike of our campaign
and the pilgrimage of the preachers, was their posi-
tively non-party and non-sectarian character. John
Crondall had been firm upon this point from the
beginning. I remember his saying at the first meet-
ing of the executive of The Citizens:
" Our party government, party conflict, here in
England, have sapped the vitality of the British Em-
pire long enough. I believe the invasion has scotched
the thing, and we must be very careful to do nothing
that might help to bring it to life again. A Radical,
as such, is neither better nor worse than a Conserva-
tive. It does not matter two pins what becomes of
the Conservative organization, or the Liberal party,
as parties. I should be delighted never to hear of
either again. Our business is the Empire's business ;
and we want the people of the Empire with us the
whole lot of them as one solid party."
Accordingly, no mention of any political party was
ever heard at our meetings. We made no appeal to
any given section of the community, but only to the
British public as a whole. We aimed at showing that
there could be no division in national affairs, save the
319
THE MESSAGE
division which separates citizens and patriots from
men worthy of neither name. And that is why Mau-
rice Hall, in his famous British Renaissance, was able
to write that :
" The General Elections of the invasion year were
practically directed and decided by two forces: the
influence of The Citizens and the influence of the
Canadian preachers' Duty teaching. Political opin-
ions and traditions, as previously understood, played
no part whatever."
Of course, it seems natural enough now that the
British public should be united in matters of national
and imperial import; but those whose memories are
long enough will bear me out in saying that in pre-
vious elections nine voters in ten had been guided, not
by any question of the needs of the country or the
Empire, but by their support of this party or of that,
of this colour or of that. Our politicians had strenu-
ously supported the preposterous faction system, and
fanned party rivalry in every way, because they
recognized that it gave them personal power and
aggrandizement, which they had long placed before
any consideration of the common weal. By this they
had brought shame and disaster upon the nation, in
precisely the same manner that the same results had
been produced by the same means, when these were
used by the oligarchs of the Dutch Republic, prior to
the downfall of the Netherlands.
Indeed, for some time before the invasion our poli-
ticians might have been supposed to be modelling
their lives and policy entirely upon those of the
Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century; particu-
320
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
larly with regard to their mercenary spoliation of the
nation's defence forces, and their insane pertinacity
in clinging to the policy of " cheapness," which killed
both the manufacturing and the agricultural indus-
tries of the country, by allowing other properly pro-
tected nations to oust our producers from all foreign
markets, and to swamp our home markets with their
surplus stocks. Down to the minutest detail, the same
causes and actions had produced the same results a
century earlier in the Netherlands; and even as,
first, King William of Prussia, and then revolution-
ary France, had devastated the Netherlands, so had
the Kaiser's legions overrun England. It was not
for lack of warning that our politicians had blindly
followed so fatal a lead. " The Destroyers " were
still being warned most urgently at the very time
of the invasion by public speakers, and in such lucid
works as Ellis Barker's The Rise and Decline of the
Netherlands.
In spite of the emphatically non-party character
of The Citizens' campaign, John Crondall kept in
close touch throughout with all his political friends,
and very many members of Parliament were among
our leading workers. My chief's idea was that, when
the elections drew near, we should cease to map out
our movements in accordance with those of the Cana-
dian preachers, and allow them to be guided by the
exigencies of the electoral campaign ; bringing all
our influence to bear wherever we saw weakness in the
cause of patriotism and reform.
Already we had arrangements made for leading
members of The Citizens to address meetings
321
THE MESSAGE
throughout the elections at a good many centres.
But, before the electioneering had gone far, it became
evident that more had already been accomplished than
we supposed. Candidates who came before their con-
stituents with any kind of party programme were
either angrily howled down or contemptuously ig-
nored. Old supporters of " The Destroyers," who
ventured upon temporizing tactics, were perempto-
rily faced with demands for straight-out declara-
tions of policy upon the single issue of patriotic
reform and duty to the State. With a single excep-
tion, the actual members of the Cabinet in " The
Destroyers' ' Administration refrained from any
attempt to secure reelection.
Such an electoral campaign had never before been
known in England. Candidates who, even inadvert-
ently, used such words as " Conservative," " Radi-
cal," or " Liberal," were hissed into silence. Even
the word " Labour " was taboo, so far as it referred
to any political party. " Duty," " Patriotism,"
"Defence," "Citizenship," "United Empire,"
" British Federation," and, again, ringing loudly
above all other cries, " Duty " those were the
watchwords and the platforms of the invasion year
elections. The candidate who promised relief from
taxation was laughed at. The candidate who prom-
ised legislation directed toward the citizen's defence
of the citizen's hearth and home, was cheered to the
echo.
The one member of " The Destroyers' " Adminis-
tration who sought reelection, found it well to assert
the claims of his youth by making a public recanta-
322
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
tion of all his previously expressed views and policy,
and seeking to outdo every one else in the direction
of patriotic reform. Though he gulled nobody, he
was listened to good-humouredly, and defeated with
great ease by Abel Winchester, the Australian, who
saw years of work before him, in conjunction with
Forbes Thompson, in the supervision of village rifle
corps throughout the country.
In many ways the country had never known a
Parliamentary election so constructive; in one re-
spect it was absolutely destructive. It destroyed all
previously existing political parties. No single mem-
ber was returned as the representative of a previously
existing party. The voters of Britain had refused
to consider any other than the one issue of patriotic
reform: the all-British policy, as it was called; and
the consequence was, that when Parliament assembled
it was found that the House of Commons could no
longer boast possession of an Opposition.
The members of that assembly had been sent to
St. Stephens to busy themselves, in unison, with the
accomplishment of a common end ; and if one among
them should waste the time of the House by any form
of obstruction, he could only do so by breaking the
pledges upon the strength of which he had been
elected. This fact was clearly set forth in the Speech
from the Throne, delivered by the King in person.
The business of Parliament was in full swing before
its second sitting was far advanced. Though then an
aged man, the famous statesman to whom the King
had entrusted the task of forming a new Cabinet bore
himself with the vigour of early manhood, and no
323
THE MESSAGE
Prime Minister had ever faced Parliament with so
great a driving power behind him of unity, confidence,
and national sympathy. The fact that for years his
name had been most prominently associated with
every movement making for unity within the Empire ;
that he had striven valiantly for many years against
the anti-British forces of disintegration ; this was
admitted to augur well for the success of the Confer-
ence of Colonial representatives then holding its first
sitting in historic Westminster Hall.
Meantime, the patriotic enthusiasm of the general
public seemed to have been greatly heightened by the
result of the general elections. By common consent
a note of caution, of warning, took the place of the
stirring note of appeal and stimulation which had
formerly characterized every public address delivered
under the auspices of The Citizens. Almost without
invitation now the cream of the country's manhood
flocked into our travelling headquarters for enrol-
ment on the roster of The Citizens; and: "Hasten
slowly and silently," became John Crondall's coun-
sel to all our supporters.
The effect upon the whole public of this counsel of
caution and restraint was one of the most remarkable
features of that period ; and it showed, more clearly,
I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and
strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian
preacher's Duty teaching. Our relations with the
Power to which we were in effect a people in vassalage,
and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the
exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely
the people responded to this demand. In his His-
324
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
tory of the Revival, Charles Corbett says, with good
reason :
" It was the time of waiting, of cautious prepara-
tion, of enthusiasm restrained and harnessed to pru-
dence, which must really be regarded as the proba-
tionary era of the Revival. It is in no sense a
depreciation of the incalculable value of the work
done by the Canadian apostles of the new faith, to
say that their splendid efforts might well have proved
of no more than transitory effect, but for that stern,
silent period of repression, of rigid, self -administered
discipline, which followed the access to office of the
first Free Government. 1 That period may be re-
garded as the crucible in which British Christianity
was tested and proven ; in which the steel of the new
patriotism was tempered and hardened to invincible
durability. The Canadian preachers awakened the
people ; The Citizens set them their task ; the period
of waiting schooled them in the spirit of the twen-
tieth century, the key-note of which is discipline, the
meaning of which is Duty."
I do not regard that as a statement of more than
the truth; and I do not think it would be easy to
overrate, either the value of the period or the excel-
lence of the response to the demand it made upon
them. The only dissatisfied folk were the publicans
and the theatre and music-hall lessees. The special
journals which represented the interests of this class
caterers for public amusement and public dissipa-
1 This title, applied by the Prince of Wales in a speech delivered
at the Guildhall to the first Parliament which met without an
Opposition, remained in use for a number of years afterwards.
325
THE MESSAGE
tion were full of covert raillery against what they
called the new Puritanism. Their raillery was no
more than covert, however ; the spirit of the time was
too strong to permit more than that, and I do not
think it produced any effect worth mentioning.
Here again our difficulties proved real blessings in
disguise. The burden of invasion taxation was heavy ;
all classes felt the monetary pinch of it, apart
altogether from the humiliation of the German occu-
pation ; and this helped very materially in the devel-
opment of common sense ideals regarding economy
and simple living. Not for nothing had John
Crondall called the Canadian preachers the mouth-
piece of the hour. One saw very plainly, in every
walk of life, a steadily growing love of sobriety.
The thing was perhaps most immediately noticeable
in the matter of the liquor traffic. Throughout the
country, those public-houses and hotels which were in
reality only drinking-shops were being closed up by
the score, or converted into other sorts of business
premises, for lack of custom in their old misery-
breeding trade. The consumption of spirits, and of
all the more expensive wines, decreased enormously.
It is true there was a slight increase in the consump-
tion of cider, and the falling off of beer sales was
slight. But this was because a large number of
people, who had been in the habit of taking far less
wholesome and more costly beverages, now made use
of both beer and cider. It was not at all evidence
that the consumption of alcohol among the poorer
classes maintained its old level. The sales of gin, for
326
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
example, fell to less than half the amounts used in
the years before the invasion.
And this was no more than one aspect of the great
national progress toward realization of the ideals of
Duty and simple living. Extravagance of every sort
became, not merely unpopular, but hated and de-
spised, as evidence of unpatriotic feeling. In this,
I think, the women of England deserve the greater
meed of gratitude and respect. The change they
wrought in domestic economy was not less than won-
derful when one realizes how speedily it was brought
about, and how great was the change. For in the
years immediately preceding the invasion the women
had been sad offenders in this respect, particularly,
perhaps, in their vulgar and ostentatious extrava-
gance in matters of dress. Now, the placards of the
British Commercial Union, exhorting the public to
" Buy British Empire Goods only," became out of
date almost as soon as they were printed, their advice
being no longer needed.
No more could one see the wives and daughters of
England competing with their unfortunate sisters of
the demi-monde in the extravagance of their attire.
One of the first evidences of the effect of the Cana-
dian preachers' teaching that I can remember was the
notable access of decorum and simplicity in dress
which dominated the fashion of our clothes. In this,
as in sundry other matters, I think we were helped
by the unprecedented number of Colonials who began
to flock into England at this time from Canada,
South Africa, and Australia. But, despite the gen-
eral desire for economy, it is certain that from that
327
THE MESSAGE
time on the middle-class folk at all events began to
wear better clothes and buy better commodities gen-
erally articles which lasted longer, and were better
worth using. The reason of this was all a part of the
same teaching, the same general tendency. Shoddy
goods, representing the surplus output of German
and American firms, could no longer be sold in Eng-
land, however low the prices at which they were
offered; and shopkeepers soon found that they lost
standing when they offered such goods to the public.
Thus true economy and true patriotism were served
at one and the same time.
Extravagance in eating, dress, entertainment, and
the like, became that year more disgraceful than
drunkenness had been a year before in the public
eye. In the same way we attained to clearer vision
and a saner sense of proportion in very many matters
of first-rate social importance. I remember reading
that the market for sixty and seventy horse-power
touring motor-cars had almost ceased to exist, while
the demand for industrial motor-vehicles, and for
cars of something under twenty horse-power, had
never been so flourishing.
Before this time we had fallen into incredible ex-
travagance in our attitude toward all the parasitical
occupations, and paid absurd tributes of respect to
many of those who waxed fat upon pandering to our
weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single
night's dream, and incidentally gave rise to a certain
amount of complaining from those who suffered by
it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these
complainings than it was to fritter away its time and
328
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
substance in drinking-bars or in places of amusement.
The famous " Middle-class Music-halls " faded
quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the
most popular of public performers were those and
they were not a few who forsook grease-paint for
khaki, and posturing on stages for exercising on
rifle-ranges and drill-grounds.
The word " Puritanism " was still a term of re-
proach then, by virtue of its old associations; but,
as we see things nowadays, there is room only for
gladness in admitting that the wave of feeling which
swept through the homes of England in the wake of
the Canadian preachers, The Citizens, and the organ-
izers of the village rifle corps, was in very truth a
mighty revival of Puritanism, backed by the newly
awakened twentieth-century spirit of Imperial patri-
otism, with its recognition of the duty of loyalty,
not alone to country, but to race and Empire. Yes,
it was true Puritanism stern, unfaltering Puritan-
ism ; and it came to England not a day too soon.
Without it, we could never have been purged of our
insensate selfishness ; without it, the loose agglomera-
tion of states, then called the British Empire, could
never have been welded into the State ; without it, the
great events of that year would have been impossible,
and the dominion of the English-speaking peoples
must, ere this, have become no more than a matter of
historical interest.
329
XII
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATEB
Stern lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace ;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face :
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads ;
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ;
And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh
and strong. Ode to Duty.
I SUFFERED no change so far as Constance
Grey's demeanour to me was concerned ; but cer-
tainly John Crondall had altered since the day upon
which I had so inopportunely entered his room when
Constance was with him. At times I fancied his
change was toward me personally, and I thought it
curiously unlike the man to cherish any sort of un-
kindness over an accident. But then, again, at odd
times, I watched him with other men among our now
considerable train, and the conclusion was borne in
upon me that the change had nothing to do with me,
but was general in its character. He was more stern,
less cheery, and far more reserved than before.
And this I thought most strange, for it seemed to
me that, even though Constance and my chief might
have agreed that nothing like an engagement between
330
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
them must come till our work was done, yet the under-
standing which could lead to the kiss I had seen was
surely warrant enough for a change of quite another
character than this one. I thought of it whenever I
took Constance's hand in greeting her; and I think
my eyes must sometimes have told her what my heart
always felt : that in me, this right to do as Crondall
had done would have seemed an entry into Paradise,
let circumstances and conditions be what they might.
And with such a thought I would recall what, to me,
would never be the least of Black Saturday's events:
that once Constance Grey had lain in my arms
unconsciously, it was true; and that upon the same
occasion I had kissed her, and known in that moment
that never again could she be as other women for me.
I was often tempted to speak to Constance of the
change I saw in John Crondall, and one day in Car-
lisle I yielded to the temptation. At one and the same
time I both craved and dreaded definite news of the
understanding between the woman I loved and the
man I liked and respected more than any other. I
wanted Constance's confidence; yet I felt as though
my life would be stripped bare by definite knowledge
that she was betrothed. So, moth-like, I hovered
about the perilous subject, with a nervous endeavour
to lend natural composure to my voice.
" Do you notice any particular change in John
Crondall of late ? " I asked. And it seemed to me
that Constance flushed slightly as she answered me :
"Change? No. Has he changed ?"
" Well, he does not seem to be nearly so happy
as " And there I broke away from a danger-
331
THE MESSAGE
ous comparison, and substituted " as he was awhile
back."
" Really? But what makes you think that? "
" I fancy he is much more reserved less frank
and more preoccupied; not so jolly, in fact, as he
always was. I have thought so for several weeks."
" I am sorry, very sorry ; and I do hope you are
mistaken. Of course he is overworked we all are ;
but that never hurt him before; and with things
going so splendidly Oh, I hope you are mis-
taken.'*
" Perhaps so," I said. " Certainly I think he has
every reason to be happy to be happy and proud ;
every reason."
And I stopped at that; but Constance made no
sign to me ; and I wondered she did not, for we were
very intimate, and she was sweetly kind to me in those
days. Indeed, once when I looked up sharply at her
with a question from some work we were engaged
upon, I saw a light in her beautiful eyes which
thrilled my very heart with strange delight. Her
expression had changed instantly, and I told myself
I had no sort of business to be thrilled by a look which
was obviously born of reverie, of thoughts about John
Crondall. Such a sweet light of love her eyes held!
I told myself for the hundredth time that no consid-
eration should ever cloud the happiness of the man
who was so fortunate as to inspire it to have won
the heart which looked out through those shining
eyes.
But it must not be supposed that I had much leisure
for this sort of meditation. My feeling for Con-
332
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
stance certainly dominated me. Indeed, it accounted
for everything of import in my life for my general
attitude of mind and, I make no doubt, for my being
where I was and playing the part I did play in The
Citizens' campaign. But our life was not one that
admitted of emotional preoccupation of any sort.
We were too close to the working mechanism of
national progress. There never was more absorbing
work than the making and enrolment of Citizens at
such a juncture in the history of one's country.
The spirit of our work, no less than that of the
Canadian preachers' teaching, was actually in the air
at that time. It dominated English life, from the
mansions of the great landholders to the cottages of
the field-labourers and the tenements of the factory-
hands. It affected every least detail of the people's
lives, and coloured all thought and action in Eng-
land a process which I am sure was strengthened
by the remarkable growth of Colonial sentiment
throughout the country at this time. The tide of
emigration seemed to have been reversed by some
subtle process of nature : the strong ebb of previous
years had become a flow of immigration. Every-
where one met Canadians, Australians, South Afri-
cans, and an unusual number of Anglo-Indians.
" We've been doing pretty well of late," said one
of the Canadians to me when I commented to him
upon this influx into the Old Country of her Colonial
sons ; " and I reckon we can most of us spare time
to see things through a bit at Home. The way our
folk look at it on the other side is this : They reckon
we've got to worry through this German business
333
THE MESSAGE
somehow and come out the right way up on the other
side, and a good deal more solid than we went in.
We don't reckon there's going to be any more ' Little
Englandism ' or Cobdenism after this job's once put
through; and that's a proposition we're mighty
keenly interested in, you see. We put most of our
eggs into the Empire basket, away back, while you
people were still busy giving Africa to the Boers, and
your Navy to the dogs, and your markets to Ger-
many, and your trade and esteem to any old foreigner
that happened along with a nest to feather. I reckon
that's why we're most of us here ; and maybe that's
why we mostly bring our cartridge-belts along. A
New South Wales chap told me last night you
couldn't get up a cricket match aboard a P. and O.
or Orient boat, not for a wager nothing but
shooting competitions and the gentle art of drill.
You say ' Shun ! ' to the next Colonial you meet, and
listen for the click of his heels ! Not that we set
much store by that business ourselves, but we learned
about the Old Country taste for it in South Africa,
and it's all good practice, anyhow, and good disci-
pline."
But, whatever the motives and causes behind their
coming, it is certain that an astonishingly large num-
ber of our oversea kinsmen were arriving in England
each week; and I believe every one of them joined
The Citizens. Their presence and the part they
played in affairs had a marked effect upon the
spirit of the time. All sorts and conditions of
people, whose thoughts in the past had never
strayed far from their own parishes, now talked
334
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
familiarly of people, things, and places Colonial.
The idea of our race being one big tribe, though
our homes might be hemispheres apart, seemed to
me to take root for the first time in the minds of the
general public at about this period. I spoke of it to
John Crondall, and reminded him how he had urged
this idea upon us years before in Westminster with
but indifferent success.
" Ah, well," he said, " they have come to it of their
own accord now ; and that means they'll get a better
grip of it than any one could ever have given them.
That's part of our national character, and not a bad
part."
We were heading southward through Lancashire,
when the news reached us of that extension of the
British Constitution which first gave us a really Impe-
rial Parliament. The country received the news
with a deep-seated and sober satisfaction. Perhaps
the majority hardly appreciated at once the full sig-
nificance of this first great accomplishment of the
Free Government. But the published details showed
the simplest among us that by this act the congeries
of scattered nations we had called the British Empire
were now truly welded into an Imperial State. It
showed us that we English, and all those stalwart
kinsmen of ours across the Atlantic and on the far
side of the Pacific north, south, east, and west,
wherever the old flag flew were now actually as
well as nominally subjects of one Government, and
that that Government would for the future be com-
posed of men chosen as their representatives by the
people of every country in the Empire; men drawn
335
THE MESSAGE
together under one historic roof by one firm purpose
the service and administration of a great Impe-
rial State.
As I say, the realization produced deep-seated sat-
isfaction. Of late we had learned to take things
soberly in England ; but there was no room for doubt
about the effect of this news upon the public. The
events of the past half-year, the pilgrimage of the
Canadian preachers, the new devotion to Duty (which
seemed almost a new religion though it was actually
but an awakening to the religion of our fathers), the
influx among us of Colonial kinsmen, and the cam-
paign of The Citizens; these things combined to give
us a far truer and more keen appreciation of the
news than had been possible before.
Indeed, looking back upon my experience in Fleet
Street, I must suppose the whole thing would have
been impossible before. I could imagine how my
Daily Gazette colleagues would have scoffed at the
Imperial Parliament's first executive act, which was
the devising of an Imperial Customs Tariff to give
free trade within the Empire, and complete protection
so far as the rest of the world was concerned, with
strictly reciprocatory concessions to such nations as
might choose to offer these to us, and to no others.
Truly Crondall had said that the Canadian preach-
ers accomplished more than they knew. The sense of
duty, individual and national, burned in England for
the first time since Nelson's day: a steady, white
flame. The acceptance by all classes of the commu-
nity of the Imperial Parliament's programme of work
proved this. The public had been shown that our
336
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
duty to the whole Empire, and to our posterity, de-
manded this thing. That was enough. Five years
before, one year before, the country had been shown
very clearly where its duties lay; and the showing
had not moved five men in a hundred from their blind
pursuit of individual pleasure and individual gain.
Army, Navy, Colonies, Imperial prestige all might
go by the board.
But now, all that was changed. My old friend,
Stairs, with Reynolds, and their following, had given
meaning and application to the teaching of our na-
tional chastisement. Religion ruled England once
more ; and it was the religion, not of professions and
asseverations, but of Duty. The House of Commons
and, more even than our first Free Government, the
Imperial Parliament in Westminster Hall had behind
them the absolute confidence of a united people. If
England could have been convinced at that time that
Duty demanded a barefoot pilgrimage to Palestine,
I verily believe Europe would have speedily been dis-
sected by a thousand-mile column of marching Brit-
ishers.
But the Canadian preachers taught a far more
practical faith than that; and, behind them, John
Crondall and his workers opened the door upon a
path more urgent and direct than that of any pil-
grimage; the path to be trodden by all British
citizens who respected the white hairs of their fathers,
and the innocent trust of their children ; the path of
Duty to God and King and Empire; the path for
all who could hear and understand the call of our
own blood.
337
XIII
ONE SUMMER MORNING
To humbler functions, awful Power !
I call thee : I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour ;
O, let my weakness have an end !
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice ;
The confidence of reason give ;
And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.
Ode to Duty.
WINTER rushed past us like a tropical squall
that year, and, before one had noted the beau-
tiful coming of spring, young summer was upon the
land. For me, serving as I did the founder and
leader of The Citizens, life was filled as never before.
I had never even dreamed of a life so compact of far-
reaching action, of intimate relation with great
causes.
I know now that the speed and strenuousness of it
was telling upon all of us. But we did not realize it
then. John Crondall seemed positively tireless. The
rest of us had our moments of exhaustion, but never,
I think, of depression. Our work was too finely pro-
ductive and too richly rewarded for that. But we
were thin, and a little fine-drawn, like athletes some-
what overtrained.
338
ONE SUMMER MORNING
Published records have analyzed our progress
through the country, the Canadian preachers' and
our own ; but nothing I have read, or could tell, gives
more than a pale reflection of that triumphal prog-
ress, as we lived it. In our wake, harlots forsook
harlotry to learn something of nursing by doing the
rough domestic work of hospitals ; famous misers
and money-grubbers gave fortunes to The Citizens'
cause, and peers' sons left country mansions to learn
defensive arts, in the ranks ; drunkards left their
toping for honest work, and actresses sold their ward-
robes to provide funds for village rifle corps.
There was no light sentiment, no sort of hysteria,
at the back of these miracles. Be it remembered that
the streets of English towns had never been so or-
derly ; public-houses and places of amusement had
never been so empty ; churches and chapels had never
been one-half so full. During that year, as the rec-
ords show, it became the rule in many places for
curates and deacons to hold services outside the
churches and chapels, while packed congregations
attended the services held within. And it was then
that, for the first time, we saw parsons leading the
young men of their flocks to the rifle-ranges, and
competing with them there.
The lessons we learned in those days will never, I
suppose, seem so wonderful to any one else as to those
of us who had lived a good slice of our lives before
the lessons came ; before the need of them was felt or
understood. " For God, our Race, and Duty ! " Con-
ceive the stirring wonder of the watchword, when it
was no more than a month old !
339
THE MESSAGE
The seasons rushed by us, as I said. But one short
conversation served to mark for me the coming of
summer. We had reached the Surrey hills in our
homeward progress toward London. On a Saturday
night we held a huge meeting in Guildford, and very
early on Sunday morning I woke with a curiously
insistent desire to be out in the open. Full of this
inclination I rose, dressed, and made my way down to
the side entrance of the hotel, where a few servants
were moving about drowsily. As I passed out under
a high archway into the empty, sunny street, with its
clean Sabbath hush, Constance Grey stepped out
from the front entrance to the pavement.
" I felt such a longing to be out in the open this
morning," she said, when we had exchanged greet-
ing. " It's months since I had a walk for the walk's
sake, and now I mean to climb that hill that we
motored over from Farnham the Hog's Back, as
they call it."
We both thought it deserved some more beautiful
name, when we turned on its crest and looked back at
Guildford in the hollow, shining in summer morning
haze.
" Now surely that's King Arthur's Camelot," said
Constance.
And then we looked out over the delectable valley
toward the towers of Charterhouse, across the roofs
of two most lovable hamlets, from which blue smoke
curled in delicate spirals up from the bed of the
valley, through a nacreous mist, to somewhere near
our high level.
340
ONE SUMMER MORNING
We gazed our fill, and I only nodded when Con-
stance murmured:
" It's worth a struggle, isn't it? "
I knew her thought exactly. It was part of our
joint life, of the cause we both were serving. I had
been pointing to some object across the valley, and
as my hand fell it touched Constance's hand, which
was cool and fresh as a flower. Mine was moist and
hot. I never was more at a loss for words. I took
her hand in mine and held it. So we stood, hand in
hand, like children, looking out over that lovely Eng-
lish valley. My heart was all abrim with tenderness ;
but I had no words. I had been a good deal moved
by the curious instance of telepathic sympathy or
understanding which had brought me from my bed
that morning and led to our meeting.
" You have given me so much, taught me so much,
Constance," I said at last.
" No, no ; I am no teacher," she said. " But I do
think God has taught all of us a good deal lately
all our tribe Dick."
There was a rare hint of nervousness in her voice;
and I felt I knew the cause. I felt she must be think-
ing of John Crondall. And yet, if my life had de-
pended on it, I could not help saying:
" It is love that taught me."
Constance drew her hand away gently.
" Would not the Canadian preachers say we meant
the same thing? " she said. I had my warning; but,
though haltingly, the words would come, now.
" Ah, Constance, it is love of you, I mean love
of you. Oh, yes, I know," I hurried on now. " I
341
THE MESSAGE
know. Have no fear of me. I understand. But it
is love of you, Constance, that rules every minute of
my life. I couldn't alter that if I tried ; and and
I would not alter it if I had to die for it. But
you must forgive me. Tell me you do not want me
to stop loving you, Constance. You see, I do not
ask any more of you. I understand. But let me
go on loving you, dear heart, because that means
everything to me. It has guided me in everything
I have done since that day you came to me in The
Mass office. Constance, you do not really want me
to stop loving you ? "
I was facing her now; kneeling to her, in my
mind, though not in fact. Her head was bowed
toward me. Then she raised her glorious eyes, and
gave to me the full tender sweetness of them.
" No, Dick," she said, quite firmly, but soft and
low ; " I don't want you ever to stop loving me."
Whatever else Fate brings or takes from me, I
shall never lose the lovely music of those words. That
is mine for ever.
842
XIV
" FOR GOD, OUE RACE, AND DUTY "
Soldiers, prepare ? Our cause is Heaven's cause ;
Soldiers, prepare ! Be worthy of our cause :
Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky :
Prepare, O troops that are to fall to-day !
Prepare, prepare.
Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice ;
The Norman William, and the learned Clerk,
And Lion-Heart, and black-browed Edward, with
His loyal queen shall rise, and welcome us I
Prepare, prepare. BLAKE.
WE had two other meetings before finally taking
train for London; but virtually our cam-
paign was brought to an end at Guildford. Our
peregrination ended there, but the Canadian preach-
ers continued their pilgrimage till long afterwards.
Scores of rich men were anxious to finance these ex-
pounders of the new teaching, and even to build them
churches. But Stairs and Reynolds were both agreed
in wanting no churches. Their mission was to the
public as a whole.
When we returned to our headquarters in London,
the membership of The Citizens stood within a few
hundreds of three million and a half of able-bodied
men. And still new members were being sworn in
343
THE MESSAGE
every day. Some few of these members had contrib-
uted as much as five thousand pounds to our funds.
Very many had contributed a fifth of that sum, and
very many more had given in hundreds of pounds.
There were some who gave us pence, and they were
very cordially thanked, giving as they did from the
slenderest of purses. There were women who had
sold dresses and j ewels for us, hundreds of them ;
and there were little children whose pocket-money had
helped to swell the armament and instruction funds.
Joseph Farquharson, the well-known coal and iron
magnate, who had been famous for his " Little Eng-
land " sentiments a man who had boasted of his
parochialism must have learned very much from
the invasion and the teaching of the new movement.
He gave one hundred thousand pounds to The Citi-
zens after John Crondall's first address in Newcastle.
When Crondall attended the famous Council at the
War Office, he did so as the founder and representa-
tive of the most formidable organization ever known
in England. He had no official standing at the Coun-
cil: he took his seat there as an unofficial commoner.
Yet, in a sense, he held the defensive strength of
Britain in his hand. But several of the Ministers and
officials who formed that Council were members of
our Executive, and our relations with the Government
were already well defined and thoroughly harmoni-
ous. It was from the War Office that we received the
bronze badge which was supplied to every sworn
Citizen and bore our watchword " For God, our
Race, and Duty " ; and the Government had given
substantial aid in the matter of equipment and in-
344
"FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY"
struction. But now John Crondall represented three
million and a half of British men, all sworn to re-
spond instantly to his call as President of the Execu-
tive. And every Citizen had some training was
then receiving some training.
" The Canadian preachers waked and inspired the
people; we swore them in," said John Crondall mod-
estly. " Their worth is the faith in them, and their
faith spells Duty. That's what makes The Citizens
formidable."
" The grace of God," Stairs called it ; and so did
many others.
Crondall bowed to that, and added a line from his
favourite poet : " Then it's the grace of God in those
' Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a
world of men ! ' " he said.
No wise man has ever doubted, so far as I know,
that simple piety, simple religion, " British Chris-
tianity," was the motive force at work behind the
whole of the revival movement. Without that foun-
dation, the enduring results achieved must have been
impossible. But this was entirely unlike any previ-
ously known religious revival, in that it supplied no
emotional food whatever. There was no room for
sentimentality, still less for hysteria, in the accepta-
tion of George Stairs's message from that " Stern
Daughter of the Voice of God," whose name is Duty.
Tears and protestations were neither sought nor
found among converts to the faith which taught all
to be up and doing in Duty's name.
From the records, I know that eight weeks passed
after the famous Council at the War Office before
345
THE MESSAGE
England spoke. When I say that during that time
I acted as my chief's representative in controlling
an office of over ninety clerks (all drilled men and
fair shots), besides several times traversing the
length and breadth of the kingdom on special mis-
sions, it will be understood that the period was to me a
good deal more like eight days. During that time,
too, I was able to help Constance Grey in her organi-
zation of the women helpers' branch of The Citizens,
in which over nine thousand members were enrolled.
Constance had an executive committee of twenty-five
volunteer workers, who spent money and energy un-
grudgingly in helping her.
We kept in close touch with the heads of provincial
committees during the whole of that period, and sev-
eral times we communicated by means of printed
circular letters, franked gratis for us by the War
Office, with every single Citizen.
Then came the day of the now historic telegram
which the Post Office was authorized to transmit to
every sworn Citizen in the kingdom :
" Be ready ! ' For God, our Race, and Duty.' "
This was signed by John Crondall, and came after
some days of detailed instruction and preparation.
It has been urged by some writers that the Govern-
ment was at fault in the matter of its famous declara-
tion of war with Germany. It has been pointed out
that for the sake of a point of etiquette, the Govern-
ment had no right to yield a single advantage to an
enemy whose conduct toward us had shown neither
mercy nor courtesy. There is a good deal to be said
for this criticism; but, when all is said and done, I
346
" FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY "
believe that every Englishman is glad at heart that
our Government took this course. I believe it added
strength to our fighting arm; I believe it added
weight and consequence to the first blows struck.
Be that as it may, there was no sign of hesitancy
or weakness in the action of the Government when
the declaration had once been made; and it speaks
well for the deliberate thoroughness of all prepara-
tions that, twenty-four hours after the declaration,
every one of the nine German garrisons in the king-
dom was hemmed in by land and by sea. On the land
side the Germans were besieged by more than three
million armed men. Almost the whole strength of
the British Navy was then concentrated upon the
patrolling of our coasts generally, and the blockad-
ing of the German-garrisoned ports particularly.
Thirty-six hours had not passed when the German
battle-ships Hohenzottern and Kaiserin, and the cruis-
ers Elbe and Deutschland, were totally destroyed off
Portsmouth and Cardiff respectively; Britain's only
loss at that time being the Corfe Castle, almost the
smallest among the huge flotilla of armed merchant-
men which had been subsidized and fitted out by the
Government that year.
I believe all the authorities had admitted that, once
it was known that our declaration had reached Ber-
lin, the British tactics could not have been excelled
for daring, promptitude, and devastating thorough-
ness. It is true that Masterman, in his well-known
History of the War, urges that much loss of life
might have been spared at Portsmouth and Devon-
port " if more deliberate and cautious tactics had
347
been adopted, and the British authorities had been
content to achieve their ends a little less hurriedly."
But Masterman is well answered by the passage in
General Hatfield's Introduction to Low's important
work, which tells us that:
" The British plan of campaign did not admit of
leisurely tactics or great economy. Britain was
striking a blow for freedom, for her very life. Fail-
ure would have meant no ordinary loss, but mere ex-
tinction. The loss of British life in such strongly
armed centres as Portsmouth was very great. It
was the price demanded by the immediate end of
Britain's war policy, which was to bring the enemy
to terms without the terrible risks which delay would
have represented, for the outlying and comparatively
defenceless portions of our own Empire. When the
price is measured and analyzed in cold blood, the
objective should be as carefully considered. The
price may have been high ; the result purchased was
marvellous. It should be borne in mind, too, that
Britain's military arm, while unquestionably long and
strong (almost unmanageably so, perhaps), was
chiefly composed of what, despite the excellent in-
structive routine of The Citizens, must, from the
technical standpoint, be called raw levies. Yet that
great citizen army, by reason of its fine patriotism,
was able in less than one hundred hours from the
time of the declaration, to defeat, disarm, and extin-
guish as a fighting force some three hundred thou-
sand of the most perfectly trained troops in the
world. That was the immediate objective of Britain's
war policy ; or, to be exact, the accomplishment of
348
" FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY "
that in one week was our obj ect. It was done in four
days; and, notwithstanding the unexpected turn of
events afterwards, no military man will ever doubt
that the achievement was worth the price paid. It
strengthened Britain's hand as nothing else could
have strengthened it. It gave us at the outset that
unmistakable lead which, in war as in a race, is of
incalculable value to its possessors."
And, the General might have added, as so many
other writers have, that no civilized and thinking men
ever went more cheerfully and bravely to their deaths,
or earned more gladly the eternal reward of Duty
accomplished, than did The Citizens, the " raw lev-
ies," with their stiffening of regulars, who fell at
Portsmouth and Devonport. They were not per-
fectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or
one must suppose they would have paid some heed to
General Sir Robert Calder's repeated orders to re-
tire. But they were British citizens of as fine a cal-
ibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they
carried the Sword of Duty that day into the camp
of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not learned,
till it was written in his blood for survivors to read,
that England had awakened from her long sleep.
For my part, if retrospective power were mine, I
would not raise a finger to rob those stern converts
of their glorious end.
It is easy to be wise after the event, but no Govern-
ment could have foretold the cynical policy adopted
by Berlin. No one could have guessed that the Ger-
man Government would have said, in effect, that it
was perfectly indifferent to the fate of nearly three
349
THE MESSAGE
hundred thousand of its own loyal subjects and de-
fenders, and that Britain might starve or keep them
at her own pleasure. After all, the flower of the
German Army was in England, and only a Govern-
ment to the last degree desperate, unscrupulous, and
cynical could have adopted Germany's callous atti-
tude at this juncture.
Britain's aim was not at all the annihilation of
Germany, but the freeing of her own soil; and it
was natural that our Government should have acted
on the assumption that this could safely be demanded
when we held a great German army captive, by way
of hostage. The British aim was a sound one, and it
was attained. That it did not bring about the re-
sults anticipated was due to no fault in our Govern-
ment, nor even to any lack of foresight upon their
part; but solely to the cynical rapacity of a ruler
whose ambition had made him fey, or of a Court so
far out of touch with the country which supported
it as to have lost its sense of honour.
In the meantime, though saddled with a huge army
of prisoners, and the poorer by her loss of eighteen
thousand gallant citizens, Britain had freed her
shores. In an even shorter time than was occupied
over the invasion, the yoke of the invader had been
torn in sunder, and not one armed enemy was left in
England. And for our losses the shedding of that
British blood partook of the nature of a sacrament;
it was life-giving. By that fiery jet we were baptized
again. England had found herself. Once more His
people had been found worthy to bear the Sword of
the Lord. Britain that had slept, was wide-eyed and
350
" FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY "
fearless again, as in the glorious days which saw the
rise of her Empire. Throughout the land one watch-
word ran : " For God, our Race, and Duty 1 " We
had heard and answered to the poet's call:
Strike for your altars and your fires ;
Strike for the green graves of your sires ;
God, and your native land!
I find it easy to believe and read between the lines
of the grim official record which told us that outside
Portsmouth " white-haired men smiled over the graves
of their sons, and armed youths were heard singing
triumphant chants while burying their fathers."
Meantime, simple folk in the southern country lanes
of Dorset and of Hampshire (Tarn Regis yokels
among them, no doubt) heard the dull, rumbling thun-
der of great guns at sea, and the talk ran on naval
warfare.
351
XV
" SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD
Yea, though we sinned and our rulers went from righteousness
Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garment's hem.
Hold ye the Faith the Faith our fathers sealed us ;
Whoring not with visions overwise and overstate.
Except ye pay the Lord
Single heart and single sword,
Of your children in their bondage shall he ask them
treble-tale I
RUDYARD KIPLING.
THE learned German, Professor Elberfeld, has
told the world, in sentences of portentous
length and complication, that " the petty trader's
instincts which form the most typical characteristic
of the British race " came notably to the fore in our
treatment of the German prisoners of war who were
held under military surveillance in the British ports
which they had garrisoned.
The learned professor notes with bitter contempt
that no wines, spirits, cigars, or " other customary
delicacies " were supplied to our prisoners, and that
the German officers received very little more than the
rations served to their men. The professor makes no
mention of one or two other pertinent facts in this
connection ; as, for example, that none of these " cus-
352
"SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"
tomary delicacies " were supplied to the British
troops. We may endure his reproaches with the more
fortitude, I think, when we remember that the German
Government absolutely ignored our invitation to send
weekly shipments of supplies under a white flag for
the towns they had garrisoned on British soil.
It is known that the officers in command of the
German forces in England had previously maintained
a very lavish and luxurious scale of living; in the
same way that, since the invasion of England, ex-
travagance was said to have reached unparalleled
heights in Germany itself. But the British Govern-
ment which had reached depletion of our own sup-
plies, by assisting our prisoners to maintain a
luxurious scale of living while held as hostages, would
certainly have forfeited the confidence of the public,
and justly so. Upon the whole, it is safe to say that
German sneers at British parsimony and Puritanism
may fairly be accepted as tribute, and, as such, need
in no sense be resented.
As soon as we received Germany's cynical reply
to Britain's demand for a complete withdrawal of all
the invasion claims, it became evident that the war was
to be a prolonged and bitter one, and that no further
purpose could be served by the original British plan
of campaign, which, as its object had been the free-
ing of our own soil, had been based on the assumption
that the defeat and capture of the invader's forces
would be sufficient. Troops had to be despatched at
once to South Africa, where German overlordship
had aroused the combined opposition of the Boers
and the British. This opposition burst at once into
353
THE MESSAGE
open hostility immediately the news of England's
declaration of war reached South Africa. While the
Boers and the British, united in a common cause, were
carrying war into German Southwest Africa, troops
from German East Africa were said to have landed
in Delagoa Bay, and to be advancing southward.
In all this, the British cause was well served by
Germany's initial blunder ; by the huge mistake which
cost her four-fifths of her naval strength at a blow.
This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly trace-
able to one cause: the national arrogance which,
since the invasion, had approached near to madness ;
which had now led Germany into contemptuously
underrating the striking power still remaining in the
British Navy. It was true that, prior to the invasion,
our Navy had been consistently starved and impover-
ished by " The Destroyers." It was that, of course,
which had first earned them their title. But Germany
herself, when she struck her great blow at England,
hardly wounded the British Navy at all. Her cun-
ning had drawn our ships into a Mediterranean im-
passe when they were sadly needed upon our coasts,
and her strategy had actually destroyed one British
line of battle-ship, one cruiser, and two gunboats. But
that was the whole extent of the naval damage in-
flicted by her at the time of the invasion. But the
lesson she gave at the same time was of incalculable
value to us. The ships she destroyed had been
manned by practically untrained, short-handed crews,
hurriedly rushed out of Portsmouth barracks. Yet
German arrogance positively inspired Berlin with the
impression that the Navies of the two countries had
354
" SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD "
tried conclusions, and that our fleet had been proved
practically ineffective.
Prior to the invasion our Navy had indeed reached
a low ebb. Living always in barracks, under the per-
nicious system gradually forced upon the country by
" The Destroyers " in the name of economy, our blue-
jackets had fallen steadily from their one high stand-
ard of discipline and efficiency into an incompetent,
sullen, half -mutinous state, due solely to the criminal
parsimony and destructive neglect of an Administra-
tion which aimed at " peace at any price," and
adopted, of all means, the measures most calculated
to provoke foreign attack. But, since the invasion,
an indescribable spirit of emulation, a veritable fury
of endeavour, had welded the British fleet into a for-
midable state of efficiency.
First " The Destroyers," actuated by a combina-
tion of panic and remorse, and then the first Free
Government, representing the convinced feeling of
the public, had lavished liberality upon the Navy
since the invasion. Increased pay, newly awakened
patriotism, the general change in the spirit of the age,
all had combined to fill the Admiralty recruiting
offices with applicants. Almost all our ships had
been kept practically continuously at sea. " The
Destroyers' " murderous policy in naval matters had
been completely reversed, and our fleet was served
by a great flotilla of magnificently armed leviathans
of the Mercantile Marine, including two of the fastest
steamships in the world, all subsidized by Govern-
ment.
We know now that exact official records of these
355
THE MESSAGE
facts were filed in the Intelligence Department at
Berlin. But German arrogance prohibited their right
comprehension, and Britain's declaration of war was
instantly followed by an Imperial order which, in
effect, divided the available strength of the German
Navy into eight fleets, and despatched these to eight
of the nine British ports garrisoned by German
troops, with orders of almost childish simplicity.
These ports were to be taken, and British insurrec-
tion crushed, ashore and afloat.
If the German Navy had been free of its Imperial
Commander-in-chief, and of the insensate arrogance
of his entourage, it could have struck a terrible blow
at the British Empire, while almost the whole fight-
ing strength of our Navy was concentrated upon the
defence of England. As it was, this fine opportunity
was flung aside, and with it the greater part of Ger-
many's fleet. Divided into eight small squadrons,
their ships were at the mercy of our concentrated
striking force. Our men fell upon them with a Ber-
serker fury born of humiliation silently endured, and
followed by eight or nine months of the finest sort of
sea-training which could possibly be devised.
The few crippled ships of the German fleet which
survived those terrible North Sea and Channel en-
gagements must have borne with them into their home
waters a bitter lesson to the ruler whom they left, so
far as effective striking power was concerned, without
a Navy.
Here, again, critics have said that our tactics
showed an extravagant disregard of cost, both as to
men and material. But here also the hostile critics
356
" SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"
overlook various vital considerations. The destruc-
tion of Germany's sea-striking power at this juncture
was worth literally anything that Britain could give ;
not perhaps in England's immediate interest, but in
the interests of the Empire, without which England
would occupy but a very insignificant place among
the powers of civilization.
Then, too, the moral of our bluejackets has to be
considered. Since the invasion and the sinking of the
Dreadnought, ours had become a Navy of Berserkers.
The Duty teaching, coming after the invasion, made
running fire of our men's blood. They fought their
ships as Nelson's men fought theirs, and with the
same invincible success. It was said the Terrible's
men positively courted the penalty of mutiny in time
of war by refusing to turn in, in watches, after
forty-two hours of continuous fighting. There re-
mained work to be done, and the " Terribles " refused
to leave it undone.
The commander who had lessened the weight of the
blow struck by Britain's Navy, in the interests of
prudence or economy, would have shown himself blind
to the significance of the new spirit with which Eng-
land's awakening had endowed her sons; the stern
spirit of the twentieth-century faith which gave us
for watchword, " For God, our Race, and Duty ! "
With the major portion of our Navy still in fight-
ing trim, and twenty-five-knot liners speeding south-
ward laden with British troops, it speedily became
evident that Germany's chance of landing further
troops in South Africa was hardly worth serious con-
sideration, now that her naval power was gone. On
357
THE MESSAGE
the other hand, it was known that the enemy had
already massed great bodies of troops in East and
Southwest Africa, and it became the immediate busi-
ness of the British Admiralty to see that German
oversea communications should be cut off.
Further, we had to face ominous news of German
preparations for aggression in the Pacific and in the
near East, with persistent rumours of a hurriedly
aggressive alliance with Russia for action in the Far
East. The attitude of Berlin itself was amazingly
cynical, as it had been from the very time of the un-
provoked invasion of our shores. In effect, the
Kaiser said:
" You hold a German Army as prisoners of war,
and you have destroyed my Navy ; but you dare not
invade my territory, and I defy you to hit upon any
other means of enforcing your demands. You can do
nothing further."
The British demands, made directly the German
troops in England were in our hands, were, briefly,
for the complete withdrawal of the whole of claims en-
forced by Germany at the time of the invasion.
That, then, was the position when I returned to our
London headquarters from a journey I had under-
taken for my chief in connection with the work of
drafting large numbers of Citizens back from the
camps into private life. Various questions had to be
placed in writing before every Citizen as to his atti-
tude in the matter of possible future calls made upon
his services. I had only heard of seven cases of men
physically fit failing to express perfect readiness to
respond to any future call for active service at home
358
" SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD "
or abroad, in case of British need. Here was a shield
of which I knew both sides well. The thing impressed
me more than I can tell, or most folk would under-
stand nowadays. I knew so well how the god of busi-
ness (which served to cover all individual pursuit of
money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove
the utter impracticability of this one short year
before. I looked back toward my Fleet Street days,
and I thanked God for the awakening of England,
which had included my own awakening.
My return to London was a matter of considerable
personal interest to me, for Constance Grey was there,
having been recalled by John Crondall from her active
superintendence of nursing at Portsmouth.
359
XVI
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
There is a Pride whose Father is Understanding, whose Mother
is Humility, whose Business is the Recognition and Discharge
of Duty. That is the true Pride. MERKOW'S Essays of the Time.
I WAS impatient to reach London, but I should
have been far more impatient if I had known that
Constance Grey stood waiting to meet me on the
arrival platform at Waterloo.
" They told me your train at the office," she said,
as I took one of her hands in both of mine, " and I
could not resist coming to give you the news. Don't
say you have had it ! "
" No," I told her. " My best news is that Con-
stance has come to meet me, and that I am alive to
appreciate the fact very keenly. Another trifling
item is that, so far as I can tell, practically every
member of The Citizens would respond to-morrow
to a call for active service in Timbuctoo if the call
came. I tell you, Constance, this is not reform, it's
revolution that has swept over England. We call
our membership three and a half millions ; it's fifty
millions, really. They're all Citizens, every mother's
son of them ; and every daughter, too."
We were in a cab now.
" But what about my news ? " said Constance.
360
" Yes, tell me, do. And isn't it magnificent about
the Navy? How about those 'Terrible' fellows?
Constance, do you realize how all this must strike a
man who was scribbling and fiddling about disarma-
ment a year ago ? And do you realize who gave that
man decent sanity? "
" Hush ! It wasn't a person, it was a force ; it was
the revolution that brought the change."
" Ah, well, God bless you, Constance ! I wish you'd
give me the news."
" I will, directly you give me a chance to get in a
word. Well, John is at Westminster, in consultation
with the Foreign Office people, and nothing definite
has been done yet; but the great point is, to my
thinking, that the offer should ever have been
made."
" Why, Constance, whatever has bewitched you ? I
never knew you to begin at the end of a thing before."
And indeed it was unlike Constance Grey. She was
in high spirits, and somehow this little touch of il-
logical weakness in her struck me as being very
charming. She laughed, and said it was due to my
persistent interruptions. And then she gave me the
news.
" America has offered to join hands with us."
" Never ! "
" Yes. The most generous sort of defensive alli-
ance, practically without conditions, and ' as long
as Great Britain's present need endures.' Isn't it
splendid? John Crondall regards it as the biggest
thing that has happened ; but he is all against accept-
ing the offer."
361
THE MESSAGE
There had been vague rumours at the time of the
invasion, and again, of a more pointed sort, when
Britain declared war. But every one had said that
the pro-German party and the ultra-American party
were far too strong in the United States to permit
of anything beyond expressions of good-will. But
now, as. I gathered from the copy of the Evening
Standard which Constance gave me:
" The heart of the American people has been
deeply stirred by two considerations: Germany's un-
warrantable insolence and arrogance, and Britain's
magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat,
in fighting for her independence. The patriotic
struggle for independence that is what has moved
the American people to forgetfulness of all jealousies
and rivalries. The rather indiscreet efforts of the
German sections of the American public have un-
doubtedly hastened this offer, and made it more gen-
erous and unqualified. The suggestion that any for-
eign people could hector them out of generosity to
the nation from whose loins they sprang, finally de-
cided the American public ; and it is fair to say that
the President's offer of alliance is an offer from the
American people to the British people."
" But how about the Monroe Doctrine ? " I said to
Constance, after running through the two-column
telegram from Washington, of which this passage
formed part.
" I don't know about that ; but you see, Dick, this
thing clearly comes from the American people, not
her politicians and diplomatists only. That is what
gives it its tremendous importance, I think."
362
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
" Yes ; to be sure. And why does John Crondall
want the offer declined? "
" Oh, he hadn't time to explain to me ; but he said
something about its being necessary for the new
Britain to prove herself, first; our own unity and
strength. ' We must prove our own Imperial British
alliance first,' he said."
" I see ; yes, I think I see that. But it is great
news, as you say great news."
How much John Crondall's view had to do with the
Government's decision will never be known, but we
know that England's deeply grateful Message
pointed out that, in the opinion of his Majesty's
Imperial Government, the most desirable basis for an
alliance between two great nations was one of equality
and mutual respect. While in the present case there
could be nothing lacking in the affection and esteem
in which Great Britain held the United States, yet the
equality could hardly be held proven while the former
Power was still at war with a nation which had in-
vaded its territory. The Message expressed very feel-
ingly the deep sense of grateful appreciation which
animated his Majesty's Imperial Government and the
British people, which would render unforgettable in
this country the generous magnanimity of the Amer-
ican nation. And, finally, the Message expressed the
hope, which was certainly felt by the entire public,
that those happier circumstances which should equal-
ize the footing of the two nations in the matter of an
alliance would speedily come about.
To my thinking, our official records contain no
document more moving or more worthy of a great
363
THE MESSAGE
nation than that Message, which, as has so frequently
been pointed out, was in actual truth a Message from
the people of one nation to the people of another
nation from the heart of one country to the heart
of another country. The Message of thanks, no less
than the generous offer itself, was an assertion of
blood-kinship, an appeal to first principles, a revela-
tion of the underlying racial and traditional tie which
binds two great peoples together through and be-
neath the whole stiff robe of artificial differences which
separated them upon the surface and in the world's
eyes.
The offer stands for all time a monument to the
frank generosity and humanity of the American peo-
ple. And in the hearts of both peoples there is, in
my belief, another monument to certain sturdy quali-
ties which have gone to the making and cementing of
the British Empire. The shape that monument takes
is remembrance of the Message in which that kindly
offer was for the time declined.
The declining of the American offer has been called
the expression of a nation's pride. It was that, inci-
dentally. First and foremost and this, I think, is
the point which should never be forgotten it was
the expression of a nation's true humility. Pride we
had always with us in England, of the right sort and
the wrong sort; of the sort that adds to a people's
stature, and sometimes, of late, of the gross and
senseless sort that leads a people into decadence. But
in the past year we had learned to know and cherish
that true pride which has its foundations in the rock
of Duty, and is buttressed all about and crowned by
364
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
that quality which St. Peter said earned the grace of
God humility.
For my part, I see in that Message the ripe fruit
of the Canadian preachers' teaching; the crux and
essence of the simple faith which came to be called
" British Christianity." I think the spirit of it was
the spirit of the general revival in England that came
to us with the Canadian preachers ; even as so much
other help, spiritual and material, came to us from
our kinsmen of the greater Britain overseas, which,
before that time, we had never truly recognized as
actually part, and by far the greater part, of our
State. "
365
XVII
THE PENALTY
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed. Othello.
f T would be distinctly a work of supererogation for
-*- me to attempt to tell the story of the Anglo-
German war of all modern wars the most remark-
able in some ways, and certainly the war which has
been most exhaustively treated by modern historians.
A. Low says in the concluding chapter of his fine his-
tory :
" Putting aside the fighting in South Africa, and
after the initial destruction of both the German Navy
and its Army in England (as effective forces), we
must revert to the wars of more than a century ago
to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There
can be no doubt that at the time of the invasion of
England Germany's effective fighting strength was
enormous. Its growth had been very rapid ; its de-
cline must be dated from General von Fiichter's occu-
pation of London on Black Saturday.
" At that moment everything appeared to bode well
for the realization of the Emperor's ambition to be
Dictator of Europe, as the ruler of by far the great-
est Power in the Old World. From that moment the
German people, but more particularly the German
366
THE PENALTY
official and governing class, and her naval and mili-
tary men, would appear to have imbibed of some dis-
tillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and
found it too heady an elixir for their sanity. It
would ill become us to dilate at length upon the
extremes into which their arrogance and luxurious-
ness led them. With regard, at all events, to the
luxury and indulgence, we ourselves had been very
far from guiltless. But it may be that our extrava-
gance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of
slower growth. Certain it is, that before ever an
English shot was fired the fighting strength of Ger-
many waned rapidly from the period of the invasion.
By some writers this has been attributed to the in-
sidious spread of Socialism. But it must be remem-
bered that the deterioration was far more notable in
the higher than in the lower walks of life ; and most
of all it was notable among the naval and military
official nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the
divine privileges of ancient pedigrees.
" When the German army of occupation in Eng-
land was disarmed, prisoners in barracks and camps,
and the German Navy had, to all intents and pur-
poses, been destroyed, the Imperial German Govern-
ment adopted the extraordinary course of simply
defying England to strike further blows. Germany
practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were
ever landed in South Africa, and the German troops
already engaged there had no other choice than to
continue fighting, though left entirely without Impe-
rial backing), but emphatically refused to consider
the extremely moderate terms offered by Britain,
367
THE MESSAGE
which, at that time, did not even include an indemnity.
But this extraordinary policy was not so purely cal-
lous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things
in this world, it had its different component parts.
There was the cynical arrogance of the Prussian
Court upon the one side; but upon the other side
there was the ominous disaffection of the lesser Ger-
man States, and the rampant, angry Socialism of the
lower and middle classes throughout the Empire,
which had become steadily more and more virulent
from the time of the reactionary elections of the early
part of 1907, in which the Socialists felt that they
had been tricked by the Court party. In reality
Germany had two mouthpieces. The Court defied
Britain ; the people refused to back that defiance with
action."
For a brief summary of the causes leading up to
the strange half-year which followed our receipt of the
American offer of assistance, I think we have noth-
ing more lucid than this passage of Low's important
work. That the forces at work in Germany, which
he described from the vantage-point of a later date,
were pretty clearly understood, even at that time, by
our Government, is proved, I think, by the tactics
we adopted throughout that troublous period.
In South Africa our troops, though amply strong,
never adopted an aggressive line. They defended our
frontiers, and that defence led to some heavy fighting.
But, after the first outbreak of hostilities, our men
never carried the war into the enemy's camp. There
was a considerable party in the House of Commons
which favoured an actively aggressive policy in the
368
THE PENALTY
matter of seizing the Mediterranean strongholds ceded
to Germany at the time of the invasion. It was even
suggested that we should land a great Citizen army
in Germany and enforce our demands at the point of
the sword.
In this John Crondall rendered good service to the
Government by absolutely refusing to allow his name
to be used in calling out The Citizens for such a
purpose. But, in any case, wiser counsels prevailed
without much difficulty. There was never any real
danger of our returning to the bad old days of a
divided Parliament. The gospel of Duty taught by
the Canadian preachers, and the stern sentiment
behind The Citizens' watchword, had far too strong
a hold upon the country for that.
Accordingly, the Government policy had free play.
No other policy could have been more effective, more
humane, or more truly direct and economical. In
effect, the outworking of it meant a strictly defensive
attitude in Africa, and in the north a naval siege of
Germany.
Germany had no Navy to attack, and, because they
believed England would never risk landing an army
in Germany, the purblind camarilla who stood between
the Emperor's arrogance and the realities of life as-
sumed that England would be powerless to carry
hostilities further. Or if the Imperial Court did not
actually believe this, it was ostensibly the Govern-
ment theory, the poor sop they flung to a disaffected
people while filling their official organs with news of
wonderful successes achieved by the German forces in
South Africa.
369
THE MESSAGE
But within three months our Navy had taught the
German people that the truth lay in quite another
direction. The whole strength of the British Navy
which could be spared from southern and eastern
bases was concentrated now upon the task of blocking
Germany's oversea trade. Practically no loss of life
was involved, but day by day the ocean-going vessels
of Germany's mercantile marine were being trans-
ferred to the British flag. The great oversea carry-
ing trade, whose growth had been the pride of Ger-
many, was absolutely and wholly destroyed during
that half-year. The destruction of her export trade
spelt ruin for Germany's most important industries ;
but it was the cutting off of her imports which finally
robbed even the German Emperor of the power to
shut his eyes any longer to the fact that his Empire
had in reality ceased to exist.
The actual overthrow of monarchical government
in Prussia was not accomplished without scenes of
excess and violence in the capital. But, in justice to
the German people as a whole, it should be remem-
bered that the revolution was carried out at remark-
ably small cost ; that the people displayed wonderful
patience and self-control, in circumstances of mad-
dening difficulty, which were aggravated at every
turn by the Emperor's arbitrary edicts and arrogant
obtrusion of his personal will, and by the insolence
of the official class. One must remember that for sev-
eral decades Germany had been essentially an indus-
trial country, and that a very large proportion of her
population were at once strongly imbued with Social-
istic theories, and wholly dependent upon industrial
370
THE PENALTY
activity. Bearing these things in mind, one is moved
to wonder that the German people could have endured
so long as they did the practically despotic sway of
a Ruler who, in the gratification of his own insensate
pride, allowed their country to be laid waste by the
stoppage of trade, and their homes to be devastated
by the famine of an unemployed people whose com-
munications with the rest of the world were com-
pletely severed.
That such a ruler and such a Court should have
met with no worse fate than deposition, exile, and
dispersal is something of a tribute to the temperate
character of the Teutonic race. Bavaria, Wurtem-
burg, Saxony, and the southern Grand Duchies
elected to retain their independent forms of govern-
ment under hereditary rule ; and to this no objection
was raised by the new Prussian Republic, in which all
but one of the northern principalities were incor-
porated.
Within forty-eight hours of the election of Dr.
Carl Moller to the Presidency of the new Republic,
hostilities ceased between Great Britain and Germany,
and three weeks later the Peace was signed in London
and Berlin. Even hostile critics have admitted that
the British terms were not ungenerous. The war was
the result of Germany's unprovoked invasion of our
shores. The British terms were, in lieu of indemnity,
the cession of all German possessions in the African
continent to the British Crown, unreservedly. For
the rest, Britain demanded no more than a complete
and unqualified withdrawal of all German claims and
pretensions in the matter of the Peace terms enforced
371
THE MESSAGE
after the invasion by General Baron von Fiichter,
including, of course, the immediate evacuation of all
those points of British territory which had been
claimed in the invasion treaty, an instrument now null
and void.
The new Republic was well advised in its grateful
acceptance of these terms, for they involved no mone-
tary outlay, and offered no obstacle to the new Gov-
ernment's task of restoration. At that early stage,
at all events, the Prussian Republic had no> colonial
ambitions, and needed all its straitened financial re-
sources for the rehabilitation of its home life. (In
the twelve months following the declaration of war
between Great Britain and Germany, the number of
Germans who emigrated reached the amazing total of
1,134,378.)
To me, one of the most interesting and significant
features of the actual conclusion of the Peace
which added just over one million square miles to
Britain's African possessions, and left the Empire, in
certain vital respects, infinitely richer and more pow-
erful than ever before in its history is not so much
as mentioned in any history of the war I have ever
read, though it did figure, modestly, in the report of
the Commissioner of Police for that year. As a side-
light upon the development of our national character
since the arrival of the Canadian preachers and the
organization of The Citizens, this one brief passage
in an official record is to my mind more luminous than
anything I could possibly say, and far more precious
than the fact of our territorial acquisitions:
" The news of the signature of the Peace was pub-
372
THE PENALTY
lished in the early editions of the evening papers on
Saturday, 11 March. Returns show that the cus-
tom of the public-houses and places of entertainment
during the remainder of that day was 37^ per cent,
below the average Saturday returns. Divisional re-
ports show that the streets were more empty of traffic,
both vehicular and pedestrian, than on any ordinary
week-day. Police-court cases on the following Mon-
day were 8^/2 per cent, below the average, and in-
cluded, in the metropolitan area, only five cases of
drunkenness or disorderly conduct. All reports indi-
cate the prevalence throughout the metropolitan area
of private indoor celebrations of the Peace. All
London churches and chapels held Thanksgiving
Services on Sunday, 12 March, and the attendances
were abnormally large."
Withal, I am certain that the people of London
had never before during my life experienced a deeper
sense of gladness, a more general consciousness of re-
joicing. Not for nothing has " British Christianity "
earned its Parisian name of " New Century Puritan-
ism." As the President of the French Republic said
in his recent speech at Lyons : " It is the ' New Cen-
tury Puritanism ' which leads the new century's civili-
zation, and maintains the world's peace."
373
XVIII
THE PEACE
Fair is our lot O goodly is our heritage I
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth 1)
For the Lord our God Most High
He hath made the deep as dry,
He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth.
RUDTAKD KIPLING.
AT a very early stage of the war with Germany,
before the end of the first month, in fact, it
became evident that, our own soil having once been
freed, this was to be a maritime and not a land war.
A little later on it was made quite clear that there
would be no need to draw further upon our huge
reserve force of Citizen defenders. It was then that
John Crondall concentrated his efforts upon giving
permanent national effect to our work of the previous
year.
Fortunately, the Government recognized that it
would be an act of criminal wastefulness and extrav-
agance to allow so splendid a defensive organization
as ours to lapse because its immediate purpose had
been served. Accordingly, special legislation, which
was to have been postponed for another session, was
now hurried forward; and long before the German
Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England
374
THE PEACE
was secure in the possession of that permanent or-
ganization of home defence which, humanly speaking,
has made these shores positively impregnable, by con-
verting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of
the Empire, into a nation in arms. There is no need
for me to enlarge now upon the other benefits, the
mental, moral, and physical advancement which this
legislation has given us. Our doctors and school-
masters and clergymen have given us full and ample
testimony upon these points.
Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act,
which guaranteed military training as a part of the
education of every healthy male subject, the great
majority of The Citizens had returned to private life.
Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of
special cases, every one of The Citizens remained
members of the organization. And it was that fact
which provided incessant employment, not alone for
John Crondall and myself, and our headquarters
staff, during the progress of the war, but for our
committees throughout the country.
Before reentering private life, every Citizen was
personally interviewed and given the opportunity of
being resworn under conditions of permanent member-
ship. The new conditions applied only to home de-
fence, but they included specific adherence to our
propaganda for the maintenance of universal military
training. They included also a definite undertaking
upon the part of every Citizen to further our ends
to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State
legislation, to secure military training for his own
sons, and to abide by The Citizens' Executive in what-
375
ever steps it should take toward linking up our or-
ganization, under Government supervision, with the
regular national defence force of the country.
It should be easy to understand that this process
involved a great deal of work. But it was work that
was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the passage
into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which super-
seded the National Defence Act, after the peace had
been signed, we were able to present the Government
with a nucleus consisting of a compact working or-
ganization of more than three million British Citizens.
These Citizens were men who had undergone training
and seen active service. They were sworn supporters
of universal military training, and of a minimum of
military service as a qualification for the suffrage.
All political writers have agreed that the knowl-
edge of what was taking place in England, with
regard to our organization, greatly strengthened the
hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task
of framing and placing upon the Statute Book those
two great measures which have remained the basis of
politics and defence throughout the Empire : the Im-
perial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary
Representation Act. At the time there were not want-
ing critics who held that a short reign of peace would
bring opposition to legislation born of a state of war ;
but if I remember rightly we heard the last of that
particular order of criticism within twelve months of
the peace, it being realized once and for all then, that
the maintenance of an adequate defence system was
to be regarded, not so much as a preparation for
376
THE PEACE
possible war, as the one and only means of preventing
war.
Constance Grey worked steadily throughout the
progress of the war, and it was owing almost entirely
to her efforts that the Volunteer Nursing Corps,
which she had organized under Citizens' auspices, was
placed on a permanent footing. Admirable though
this organization was as a nursing corps, its actual
value to the nation went far beyond the limits of its
nominal scope. By her tireless activity, and as a
result of her own personal enthusiasm, Constance was
able before the end of the war to establish branches
of her corps in every part of the country, with a com-
mittee and headquarters in all large centres. Meet-
ings were held regularly at all these headquarters,
every one of which was visited in turn by Constance
herself ; and in the end The Citizens' Nursing Corps,
as this great league of Englishwomen was always
called, became a very potent force, an inexhaustible
spring of what the Prime Minister called " the domes-
tic patriotism of Britain."
In the earliest stage of this work of hers Constance
had to cope with a certain inertia on the part of her
supporters, due to the fact that no active service
offered to maintain their enthusiasm. But Con-
stance's watchword was, " Win mothers and sisters,
and the fathers and brothers cannot fail you." It
was in that belief that she acted, and before long the
Nursing Corps might with equal justice have been
called The Women Citizens. It became a great
league of domestic patriots, and it would not be easy
377
THE MESSAGE
to overstate the value of its influence upon the rising
generation of our race.
War has always been associated in men's minds
with distress and want, and that with some reason.
But after the first few months of the Anglo-German
war it became more and more clearly apparent that
this war, combined with the outworking of the first
legislation of the Imperial Parliament, was to produce
the greatest commercial revival, the greatest access
of working prosperity, Britain had ever known. Two
main causes were at work here ; and the first of them,
undoubtedly, was the protection afforded to our in-
dustries by Imperial preference. The time for tink-
ering with half-measures had gone by, and, accord-
ingly, the fiscal belt with which the first really Impe-
rial Parliament girdled the Empire was made broad
and strong. The effect of its application was grad-
ual, but unmistakable; its benefits grew daily more
apparent as the end of the war approached.
Factories and mills which had long lain idle in the
North of England were hastily refitted, and they
added every day to the muster-roll of hands employed.
Our shipping increased by leaps and bounds, but
even then barely kept pace with the increased rate
of production. The price of the quartern loaf rose
to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the wages of
labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent.,
and the demand exceeded the supply. Thousands of
acres of unprofitable grass-land and of quite idle
land disappeared under the plough to make way for
corn-fields. Wages rose in all classes of work ; but
that was not of itself the most important advance.
378
THE PEACE
The momentous change was in the demand for labour
of every kind. The statistics prove that while wages
in all trades showed an average increase of 19^/2 per
cent., unemployment fell during the year of the Peace
to a lower level than it had ever reached since records
were instituted.
In that year the cost of living among working
people was 5^/2 P 61 " cent, higher than it had been five
years previously. The total working earnings for
the year were 38^/2 per cent, greater than in any
previous year. Since then, as we know, expenditure
has fallen considerably ; but wages have never fallen,
and the total earnings of our people are still on the
up grade.
Another cause of the unprecedented access of pros-
perity which changed the face of industrial and agri-
cultural England, was the fact that some seven-tenths
of the trade lost by Germany was now not only car-
ried in British ships, but held entirely in British
hands. Germany's world markets became Britain's
markets, just as the markets of the whole Empire
became our own as the result of preference, and just
as the great oversea countries of the Empire found
Britain's home markets, with fifty million customers,
exclusively their own. The British public learned
once and for all, and in one year, the truth that re-
formers had sought for a decade to teach us that
the Empire was self-supporting and self-sufficing,
and that common-sense legislative and commercial
recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity
for British subjects the world over.
But, as John Crondall said in the course of the
379
THE MESSAGE
Guildhall speech of his which, as has often been said,
brought the Disciplinary Regiments into being, " We
cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have
studiously fostered through the better part of a cen-
tury." There was still an unemployed class, though
everything points to the conclusion that before that
first year of the Peace was ended this class had been
reduced to those elements which made it more prop-
erly called " unemployable." There were the men
who had forgotten their trades and their working
habits, and there were still left some of those melan-
choly products of our decadent industrial and social
systems the men who were determined not to work.
In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be
swept aside by the same swift, irresistible wave which
gave us " British Christianity," The Citizens' watch-
word, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of
great prosperity. It was the continued existence of
a workless class that gave us the famous Discipline
Bill. At that time the title " Disciplinary Regi-
ments " had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected
with punishment. In view of that, I shared the feel-
ing of many who said that another name should be
chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments
have earned their honourable place as the most valu-
able portion of our non-professional defence forces,
every one can see the wisdom of John Crondall's con-
tention that not the name, but the public estimate of
that name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value
and necessity of discipline was, I suppose, always
recognized. Actually, people had come to connect
the word, not with education, not with the equipment
380
THE PEACE
of every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and
disgrace.
At first there was considerable opposition to the
law, which said, in effect : No able-bodied man without
means shall live without employment. Indeed, for a
few days there was talk of the Government going to
the country on the question. But in the end the
Discipline Act became law without this, and I know
of no other single measure which has done more for
the cause of social progress. Its effects have been
far-reaching. Among other things, it was this meas-
ure which led to the common-sense system which makes
a soldier of every mechanic and artisan employed
upon Government work. It introduced the system
which enables so many men to devote a part of their
time to soldiering, and the rest to various other kinds
of Government work. But, of course, its main reason
of existence is the triumphant fact that it has done
away with the loafer, as a class, and reduced the
chances of genuine employment to a minimum. Some
of the best mechanics and artisans in England to-day
are men who learned their trade, along with soldier-
ing and general good citizenship, in one of the Dis-
ciplinary Regiments.
Despite the increase of population, the numerical
strength of our police force throughout the kingdom
is 30 per cent, lower to-day than it was before the
Anglo-German war; while, as is well known, the
prison population has fallen so low as to have led to
the conversion of several large prisons into hospitals.
The famous Military Training School at Dartmoor
was a convict prison up to three years after the war.
381
THE MESSAGE
There can be no doubt that, but for the Discipline
Bill, our police force would have required strengthen-
ing and prisons enlarging, in place of the reverse
process of which we enjoy the benefit to-day.
Its promoters deserve all the credit which has been
paid them for the introduction of this famous meas-
ure; and I take the more pleasure in admitting this
by token that the chief among them has publicly
recorded his opinion that the man primarily respon-
sible for the introduction of the Discipline Bill was
John Crondall. At the same time it should not be
forgotten that we have John Crondall's own assurance
that the Bill could never have been made law but for
that opening and awakening of the hearts and minds
of the British people which followed the spreading
of the gospel of Duty by the Canadian preachers.
882
XIX
THE GREAT ALLIANCE
Truly ye come of the Blood ; slower to bless than to ban ;
Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.
Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether ;
But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.
Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands,
And the law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.
RUDYARD KlPLING.
DURING all this time I was constantly with John
Crondall, and saw a good deal of Constance
Grey; yet the announcement that I had once ex-
pected every day, the announcement which seemed the
only natural sequence to the kiss of which I had been
an unwilling witness, never came. Neither did any
return come, in John Crondall, of his old frank
gaiety of manner. There remained always the
shadow of reserve, of gravity, and of a certain re-
straint, which dated in my mind from the day of my
inadvertent intrusion upon the scene between himself
and Constance.
Knowing John Crondall as I knew him then, it was
not possible for me to think ill of him ; but he per-
plexed me greatly at times. For at times it did seem
to me that I read in Constance's face, when we three
THE MESSAGE
were together, a look that was almost an appeal to my
chief a half-sorrowful, half-abashed appeal. Then
I would recall that kiss, and in my puzzlement I would
think : " John Crondall, if you were any other man,
I should say you "
And there my thought would stop short. Of what
should I accuse him? There was the kiss, the long
silence, John Crondall's stiffness, and then this look
of distress, this hint of appeal, in the face of Con-
stance. Well! And then my intimate knowledge of
my chief would silence me, giving me assurance that I
should never be a good enough man justly to re-
proach John Crondall. But it was all very puzzling,
and more, to me, loving Constance as I loved her.
You may judge, then, of my surprise when Cron-
dall came into my room at The Citizens' headquarters
office one morning and said :
" You have been the real secretary for some time,
Dick, not only mine, but The Citizens'; so there's no
need for me to worry about how you'll manage. I'm
going to America."
" Going to America ! Why when ? "
" Well, on Friday, I believe I sail. As to why, I'm
afraid I mustn't tell you about that just yet. I've
undertaken a Government mission, and it's confiden-
tial."
" I see. And how long will you be away ? "
" Oh, not more than two or three months, I hope."
That simplified the thing somewhat. My chief's
tone had suggested at first that he was going to live in
the United States. Even as it was, however, surely,
I thought, he would tell me something now about him-
384
THE GREAT ALLIANCE
self and Constance. But though I made several open-
ings, he told me nothing.
While John Crondall was away a new State Under-
Secretaryship was created. It was announced that
for the future the Government would include an
Under-Secretary of State for the Civilian Defence
Forces, whose chief would be the Secretary of State
for War. A few days later came the announcement
that the first to hold this appointment would be John
Crondall. I had news of this a little in advance of
the public, for my work in connection with The Citi-
zens' organization brought me now into frequent con-
tact with the War Office, particularly with regard to
supplies and general arrangements for our different
village rifle-ranges.
This piece of news seemed tolerably important to
Constance Grey and myself, and we talked it over
with a good deal of interest and enthusiasm. But
before many weeks had passed this and every other
item of news was driven out of our minds by a piece
of intelligence which, in different ways, startled and
excited the whole civilized world, for the reason that
it promised to affect materially the destiny of all the
nations of civilization. Every newspaper published
some kind of an announcement on the subject, but
the first full, authoritative statement was that con-
tained in the great London Dally which was now the
recognized principal organ of Imperial Federation.
The opening portion of this journal's announcement
read in this way :
" We are able to announce, upon official authority,
the completion of a defensive and commercial Alliance
385
THE MESSAGE
between the British Empire and the United States of
America, which amounts for all practical purposes to
a political and commercial Federation of the English-
speaking peoples of the world.
" Rumours have been current for some time of
important negotiations pending between London and
Washington, and, as we pointed out some time ago,
Mr. John CrondalPs business in Washington has been
entirely with our Ambassador there.
" The exact terms of the new Alliance will prob-
ably be made public within the next week. In the
meantime, we are able to say that the Alliance will
be sufficiently comprehensive to admit United States
trade within the British Empire upon practically
British terms that is to say, the United States will,
in almost every detail, share in Imperial Preference.
" Further, in the event of any foreign Power de-
claring war with either the British Empire or the
United States, both nations would share equally in
the conduct of subsequent hostilities, unless the war
were the direct outcome of an effort upon the part
of either of the high contracting parties in the direc-
tion of territorial expansion. The United States will
not assist the British Empire to acquire new territory,
but will share from first to last the task of defending
existing British territory against the attack of an
enemy. Precisely the same obligations will bind the
British Empire in the defence of the United States.
" It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the
importance to Christendom of this momentous achieve-
ment of diplomacy ; and future generations are little
likely to forget the act or the spirit to which this
386
THE GREAT ALLIANCE
triumph may be traced: the United States' offer of
assistance to Britain during the late war.
" The advantages of the Alliance to our good
friends and kinsmen across the Atlantic are obviously
great, for they are at once given free entry into a
market which has four hundred and twenty millions
of customers, and is protected by the world's greatest
Navy and the world's greatest citizen defence force.
Upon our side we are given free entry into the second
richest and most expansive market in the world, with
eighty million customers, and an adequate defence
force. Upon a preferential footing, such as the Alli-
ance will secure to both contracting Powers, the
United States offer us the finest market in the world
as an extension of our own. In our own markets we
shall meet the American producer upon terms of ab-
solute equality, to our mutual advantage, where a
couple of years ago we met him at a cruel disadvan-
tage, to our great loss.
" We have said enough to indicate the vast and
world-wide importance of the Alliance we are able to
announce. But we have left untouched its most
momentous aspect. The new Alliance is a guarantee
of peace to that half of the world which is primarily
concerned; it renders a breach of the peace in the
other half of the world far more unlikely than it ever
was before. As a defensive Alliance between the
English-speaking peoples, this should represent the
beginning of an era of unexampled peace, progress,
and prosperity for the whole civilized world."
Before I had half -digested this tremendous piece of
news, and with never a thought of breakfast, I found
387
THE MESSAGE
myself hurrying in a hansom to Constance Grey's
flat. In her study I found Constance, her beautiful
eyes full of shining tears, poring over the announce-
ment.
888
XX
PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of
the suns.
TENNYSON.
I HAD hoped to be the bearer of the Alliance news
to Constance, and seeing how deeply she was
moved by it made me the more regretful that I had
not arrived at the flat before her morning paper.
Constance had been the first to give me the news of
the American offer of help at the beginning of the
war; she had been the first to give me any serious
understanding of the invasion, there in that very
room of the little South Kensington flat, on the fate-
ful Sunday of the Disarmament Demonstration. Now
she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered:
" A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's
ever known, Dick," she said, and dropped one hand
on the paper in her lap.
" Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not?
I had hoped to bring it you, but I might have known
you would be at your paper betimes."
" Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent ! I have
no words to tell you how glad I am about this. I see
John Crondall's hand here, don't you? "
389
THE MESSAGE
" Yes," I said ; and thought : " Naturally ! You
see John Crondall everywhere."
" He was dead against any sort of an Alliance
while we were under a cloud. And he was right. The
British people couldn't afford to enter any compact
upon terms of less than perfect equality and inde-
pendence. But now why, Dick, it's a dream come
true : the English-speaking peoples against the world.
It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No !
With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And
never a hint of condescension, but just an honourable
pact between equals of one stock."
" Yes ; and a couple of years ago "
" A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen
who spat at the British Flag."
" There was a paper called The Mass"
Constance smiled up at me. " Do you remember
the Disarmament Demonstration ? " she said.
" Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a
wretched den, to call on the person who was assistant
editor of The Mass? "
" The person ! Come ! I found him rather nice."
" Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me ! "
" Now, there," she said, with a little smile, " I
think you might have changed your tense."
" But I was talking of two years ago, before
Well, you see, I thought of you, then, as just an
unattached angel from South Africa."
" And now you have learned that my angelic quali-
ties never existed outside your imagination. Ah,
Dick, your explanations make matters much worse."
" But, no ; I didn't say you were the less an angel ;
390
PEACE HATH HER' VICTORIES
only that I thought of you as unattached, then you
see."
Constance looked down at her paper, and a silence
fell between us. The silence was intolerable to me. I
was standing beside her chair, and I cannot explain
just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that
the very outline of her figure and the loose hair of
her head seemed at once intimately familiar and inex-
pressibly sacred and beautiful to me. Looking down
upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my
eyes. It was as though I feared to lose possession of
my faculties. That must end, I felt, or an end would
come to all reserve and loyalty to John Crondall. And
yet yet something in the curve of her cheek she
was looking down held me, drew me out of myself,
as it might be into a tranced state in which a man is
moved to contempt of all risks.
" Dear, I loved you, even then," I said ; " but then
I thought you free."
" So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice
was very low ; but there was some quality in it which
thrilled me through and through, as I stood at her
side.
" But now, of course, I know But why have
you never told me, Constance? "
" I am just as free now as then, Dick."
" Why, Constance! But, John Crondall? "
" He is my friend, just as he is yours."
" But I but he "
" Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said,
yes. John asked me to marry him, and when I said I
couldn't, he asked me to wait till our work was done,
391
THE MESSAGE
and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how
hard it was for me ? And John is he is such a
splendid man. I could not deny him, and that was
when you came into the room don't you remember
Dick?"
The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my
mind swam in clouds. I only said: "Yes?"
" Oh, Dick, I am ashamed ! You know how I re-
spect him how I like him. He did ask me again,
before he went to America."
" And now now, you "
" It hurt dreadfully ; but I had to say no, be-
cause "
And there she stopped. She was not engaged to
John Crondall. She had refused him refused John
Crondall ! Yet I knew how high he stood in her eyes.
Could it be that there was some one else some one
in Africa? The suggestion spelled panic. It seemed
to me that I must know that I could not bear to
leave her without knowing.
" Forgive me, Constance," I said, " but is there
some one else who is there some one else?" To
see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee beside
her chair.
"I I thought there was," she said very sweetly.
And as she spoke she raised her head, and I saw her
beautiful eyes, through tears. It was there I read my
happiness. I am not sure that any words could have
given it me, though I found it sweeter than anything
else I had known in my life to have her tell me after-
wards in words. It was an unforgettable morning.
392
PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES
Why did she love him ? Curious fool! be still ;
Is human love the growth of human will ?
John Crondall was my best man, as he has been
always my best friend. He insisted on my taking
over the permanent secretaryship of The Citizens
when he went to the War Office. And since then I
hope I have not ceased to take my part in making our
history ; but it is true that there is not much to tell
that is not known equally well to everybody.
Assuredly peace hath her victories. Our national
life has been a daily succession of victories since we
fought for and won real peace and overcame the
slavish notion that mere indolent quiescence could
ever give security. Our daily victory as a race is the
triumph of race loyalty over individual self-seeking ;
and I can conceive of no real danger for the British
Empire unless the day came, which God forbid, when
Englishmen forgot the gospel of our " New Century
Puritanism " the Canadian preachers' teaching of
Duty and simple living. And that day can never
come while our Citizens' watchword endures:
"Foa GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY!"
For me, I feel that my share of happiness, since
those sombre days of our national chastisement, since
those stern, strenuous months of England's awaken-
ing to the new life and faith of the twentieth century,
has been more, far more, than my deserts. But I
think we all feel that in these days ; I hope we do.
If we should ever again forget, punishment would
surely come. But it is part of my happiness to believe
393
THE MESSAGE
that, at long last, our now really united race, our
whole family, four hundred and twenty millions
strong, has truly learned the lesson which our great
patriot poet tried to teach in the wild years before
discipline came to us, in the mailed hand of our one-
time enemy:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget !
The tumult and the shouting dies ;
The captains and the kings depart :
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget !
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord I
Amen!
394
PBT
SOUTHERN nSlL / Ca "'ml
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A 000 706 643 4
